E168 



I 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



DDDD3H=^13'^D 



1 %. « vvvwnvvvvv ■■ 









a-l^c^ 



V^''*/" 'V"^\/ %^^-^%o^ v-"-^- 






...» .0^ ^^, 






■< 




-. ^^ .^ ^^^^^^'^° %/ '^te'^ %/ ^^^ " 







V 



V\ 











0^ ■ 





Lord Russell ofKillowen 
From the bust presented to the Association of the Bar ofN ew York City 
BY the Inns of Court. London 



Tanttcd States CatboUc Iblstorfcal Society 

Diary of a Visit 

TO THE 

United States of America 

IN THE YEAR 1883 

BY 

CHARLES LORD RUSSELL of Killowen 

Late Lord Chief Justice of Eng/and 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE 

Rev. MATTHEW RUSSELL, S.J. 



AN APPENDIX BY 

THOMAS FRANCIS MEEHAN, A.M. 

EDITED BY 

CHARLES GEORGE HERBERMANN, Ph.D. 



NEW YORK: 
PUBLISHED BY 

THE UNITED STATES CATHOLIC 

HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

1910 






Copyright, 1 910 

By THE UNITED STATES CATHOLIC 

HISTORICAL SOCIETY 



CCiA365351 



PREFACE 

To Rev. Matthew Russell, S.J., and Rev. John J. 
Wynne, S.J., the Editor wishes in the first place to 
express his gratitude for placing at the disposal of 
the United States Catholic Historical Society the 
interesting diary of Lord Russell of Killowen, writ- 
ten during his visit to our country in 1883. It is 
always interesting and instructive "to see ourselves 
as others see us," and Lord Russell was a man of 
such sound judgment, good taste, keen observation, 
and catholic sympathies that his views on what he saw 
in the United States cannot fail to be instructive. 
Withal, the diary affords to the reader a vivid picture 
of family life and affection which cannot fail to 
charm every sympathetic heart. 

The thanks of the Society are also due to the New 
York Bar Association for the photograph of Lord 
Russell's bust which graces its library, as well as to 
the management of the Northern Pacific Railroad 
for our illustrations of some of the leading incidents 
connected with Lord Russell's journey across our con- 
tinent. Lastly, we express our thanks to the Hon. 
John P. Mitchel for his kindness in permitting us to 
reproduce the portrait of his distinguished grand- 
father. 



Introduction 

LORD Russell of Killowen, Chief Justice of Eng- 
land, had always warm American sympathies. 
Far on in his career, when he was anything but a dis- 
appointed man, he told me that, if he had to start life 
again, he would be inclined to cast his lot under the 
Stars and Stripes. 

He paid two visits to the United States. The first 
was during the Long Vacation of 1883; and it is of 
this visit that some account is given in the following 
pages. The second visit was in the autumn of 1896, 
when he was invited to deliver the annual address be- 
fore the American Bar Association at Saratoga 
Springs. On this latter occasion he kept no diary, for 
he was accompanied by his wife, his daughter Lilian 
(now Mrs. Henry Drummond), and his son, the 
Hon. Charles Russell. He was also accompanied by 
his genial and gifted friend, Sir Frank Lockwood. 

The first time he crossed the Atlantic, he was not 
Lord Russell nor even Sir Charles Russell, nor was he 
the principal figure of the party. He accompanied 
Lord Coleridge, whom he was to succeed as Chief 
Justice of England, and Sir James Hannen, whom, 
three years later, he was to address as Head of the 
Parnell Commission in a speech eight days long. 
Those things, and other things that happened after- 

3 



4 Introduction 

wards, would have seemed improbable enough when 
Charles Stewart Parnell gave Charles Russell, Q. C, 
the day before he sailed from Liverpool, this letter of 
introduction to Justice Shea, New York : 

House of Commons, Aug. 13, 1883. 
My dear Sir : 

Permit me to introduce to you Mr. Russell, who is 
visitmg America. He is anxious to learn the status, 
political and social, and the views of our leading and 
representative countrymen in the States; and, al- 
though not a member of our party, he has always 
done what he could, both in and out of Parliament, 
from his own point of view, to serve the interests of 
Ireland. Need I say how much pleased I shall be if 
you can do anything to further the objects of his visit? 
I am, my dear Sir, 

Yours very truly, 

Chas. S. Parnell. 

The President of the Society which is publishing 
this diary will perhaps allow me to give this extract 
from his letter to Father John J. Wynne, S.J., who 
had placed it in his hands: 

"I have read through Lord Russell's diary with 
considerable interest. It impresses me greatly as a 
portrait of a good affectionate father of a family in- 
terested in the education of his children. It reminded 
me of the great Villard glorification, in which Gen- 
eral W. also took part. The diary is also a sad, 



Introduction 5 

sympathetic memorial to the Indians and affords a 
glimpse of the rising Pacific States in their infancy. 
These features, together with Lord Russell's estimate 
of the oratorical powers of Evarts and other Ameri- 
cans, some of which are quite instructive, I think, 
make the diary well worth publishing." 

I will only add that it seems to me highly charac- 
teristic of my brother that amidst all the fatigue and 
worries of such a journey he should have persevered 
in jotting down his impressions in pencil, copy-book 
after copy-book, and sending them week by week to 
the dear ones at home, without the faintest notion of 
such a fate as has now after a quarter of a century 
befallen these hurried notes of travel. 

The "Martin" referred to, especially in the ac- 
count of the visit to California, was Mr. Patrick Mar- 
tin, an Irish barrister, Q.C., and at one time M. P. for 
Kilkenny. That visit to California was undertaken 
for the purpose of seeing the "Kate" of the diary, 
namely. Mother Baptist Russell of St. Mary's Hospi- 
tal, San Francisco. She was the second of three sis- 
ters who all became Sisters of Mercy. In her 
twenty-fifth year she led out a band of nuns from 
Kinsale in the south of Ireland to the Golden Gate, 
which they entered on the very day that the dogma 
of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin 
Mary was solemnly proclaimed as an article of Cath- 
olic faith. After a very full life of great utility, she 
died In the hospital which she had founded and had 



6 Introduction 

maintained some forty years, St. Mary's, San Fran- 
cisco, in August, 1898, exactly two years before her 
brother. May they rest in peace. 

As we have said. Lord Russell always felt a warm 
admiration for the United States of America. The 
feelings entertained towards him, especially by the 
American Bar, were expressed by the Ambassador 
to England, Mr. Joseph Choate, on the occasion 
of the unveiling of Lord Russell's statue in the 
central hall of the Royal Courts of Justice, Jan- 
uary II, 1905. Of the £3,200 subscribed for the 
memorial £900 came from the United States. As 
the representative of that great country, Mr. Choate 
said that "he would never have, and never had 
had, a more grateful and agreeable duty than to 
declare his affection, esteem, and admiration for the 
great jurist and noble gentleman whose statue had 
just been unveiled. The name and personality 
of Sir Charles Russell had long been familiar to 
the profession and to all the people of the United 
States. At the time of his untimely death he was a 
universal favourite amongst all parties, creeds, and 
sections in that country. The career of every great 
English lawyer was watched with the keenest interest 
by every disciple of Blackstone and Storey wherever 
our common language was spoken, and when a man 
rose step by step by sheer force of character, talents, 
and ambition, without the aid of patronage or influ- 
ence, from the lowest rung of the ladder to the ex- 



Introduction 7 

alted position of Lord Chief Justice of England, he 
necessarily commanded their universal applause and 
admiration. There was no royal road to eminence 
at the Bar. It came by merit or it did not come at 
all; hence merit was sure to be widely appreciated 
wherever it was manifested. To the casual observer 
it was marvellous how from the moment he attained 
the ermine Lord Russell laid down all the contentions' 
of advocacy and assumed the cold neutrality of an 
impartial judge. With whole-souled devotion he 
gave himself to the duties of his great office. To do 
justice was his only object; to ascertain the truth his 
only ambition. In his death the cause of truth, jus- 
tice, and honour lost one of its noblest champions. In 
the proud position that he occupied so long as the 
greatest advocate of his time the world over. Sir 
Charles was an inspiring influence to his brethren 
everywhere, and as a supreme master of the danger- 
ous art of cross-examination, so fatal when in feeble 
hands, so triumphant for truth when happily con- 
ducted, he was not only a peer in his own time, but 
his superior could not be found In all the annals of 
forensic history. He could elicit the truth from the 
most hopeless material, and could utterly destroy a 
false witness, for whom there was no escape from his 
searching and relentless pursuit. But he was much 
more and much nearer to them than the Inspiring 
professional teacher and example. He made two 
prolonged visits to America, one in 1883 and the 



8 hitroduction 

other in 1896, both of which were ever-memorable, 
for they brought him into close contact with the lead- 
ing professional men, and his personal charm and 
magnetism had full play. Sir Charles was a strong 
believer in personal intercourse between the responsi- 
ble men of both countries as the best means of pro- 
moting international harmony. In every city that he 
visited, in public and in private, he preached the gos- 
pel of peace and goodwill between England and 
America, and his constant efforts in that direction had 
a pov/erful and enduring effect. Just before his last 
visit to America he had been leading counsel for 
Great Britain before the Court of Arbitration which 
disposed of the long vexed Behring Sea question, 
and he conducted his case with such perfect fairness 
and consummate ability that the triumph he won for 
his country left no sting behind, but his opponents 
from that day were counted amongst his life-long 
friends and devoted admirers. His last words to 
them were still freshly remembered, and had had an 
enduring influence for good : 'Who can doubt the in- 
fluence that Great Britain and America possess for 
ensuring the healthy progress and the peace of man- 
kind? But if this influence is to be fully felt they 
must work together in cordial friendship, each peo- 
ple in its own sphere of action. If they have great 
power, they have also great responsibility. No cause 
they espouse can fail, no cause they oppose can tri- 
umph. The future is in large part theirs. They 



Introduction 9 

have the making of history in the times that are to 
come. The greatest calamity that could befall would 
be strife that should divide them.' In season and out 
of season, at home and abroad, he preached the same 
doctrine, and it was not too much to say that no man 
had done more by wise counsel and earnest pleading 
to bring about the present happy relations between 
our two great countries than Lord Russell of Killo- 
wen. Who would wonder, then, that this memorial 
had been established to testify to future generations 
all his merits and virtues? On behalf of the judges 
and lawyers of America, and of all his countrymen, 
he blessed the name and memory of Lord Russell to- 
day. Might this statue, standing in the Temple of 
Justice which he so nobly adorned, show the lawyers 
of all time and of all nations what manner of man he 
was." 

During the first of the two visits to the United 
States referred to above, Charles Russell sent home 
each week an account of his travels and experiences. 
It was characteristic of him to find time and energy 
to carry this out through his whole trip, though it 
must often have been exceedingly difliicult. He jotted 
down in pencil notes of each day's doings and sent 
them home in batches according as opportunities oc- 
curred. These were transcribed very legibly into 
cahicrs by no mercenary hand, but by his wife, who 
was able to decipher characters scrawled in the most 
untoward circumstances. And then, while the pre- 



lo Introduction 

clous original was kept safe at home, the copy cir- 
culated among the scattered members of the family, 
one of whom did employ a mercenary hand to make 
a transcript which he now proposes to put partly into 
print. 

Matthew Russell, S J. 



T ORD Russell of Killowen died on August 6, 
-^-^ 1900. On the last day of that month, at the 
annual meeting of the American Bar Association held 
at Saratoga Springs, New York, Professor Bradley 
Thayer of Massachusetts moved the adoption of the 
following minutes: 

"The American Bar Association has heard with 
peculiar sorrow of the death of Lord Russell of 
Killowen, Lord Chief Justice of England, and de- 
sires to enter upon its records some permanent expres- 
sion of honour and esteem for his memory. The 
members of this Association had followed and known 
well that brilliant career which made Sir Charles Rus- 
sell the conspicuous and admired leader of the Eng- 
Hsh Bar, and they had rejoiced at the elevation of 
one so competent to the great office which he held 
with such distinction at the time of his death. Four 
years ago we welcomed him here as our chief guest. 
Recalling now the noble address which he delivered to 
us on the 30th of August, 1896, and the deep-felt en- 
thusiasm inspired in the hearts of all who listened to 
him, the members of this Association desire to express 
their admiration for the manner in which he filled his 
high office, their grateful recollection of his visit here, 
their affectionate regard for his memory, and their 
respectful sympathy with the Bench and Bar of Eng- 
land in so great a loss to our common profession." 



NOTES OF A TRIP TO THE UNITED 

STATES 

In the Summer of 1883 
BY CHARLES RUSSELL, Q,C. 

Tuesday, August 14, 1883. 
I ^" MBARKED by special tender at 1.30 with Arthur, 
^ — ' Mr. Clark, and Darling and my good old 
friend John Yates who came to see me off, Arthur 
and Mr. Clark had got free passes to Queenstown. 
Sailed about 5.30. 

Weather tolerable. Some wind and rain, and at 
times a roughish sea. 

Lord Chief Justice Coleridge and his son Herbert, 
Sir James Hannen and his son (at the Bar) and P. 
Martin, Q.C., M.P. for Kilkenny, formed what I 
call my party, all very cheery and jolly; the Lord 
Chief Justice apparently inexhaustible in story. 

Reached Queenstown at 11.30 a.m. Wednesday, 
August 15, 1883. Our party went ashore in a tender, 
where Arthur and Mr. Clark left us. 

We went in a body to the Cathedral and heard 
High Mass. A large congregation in a noble build- 
ing. The music (Mozart No. 3, I think) very poorly 
rendered, the celebrant's singing awful. No ear and 
less voice. Architect of church, Pugin. The Lord 

13 



14 A MontJi in the United States 

Chief Justice told me Hannen was greatly impressed, 
and that the latter told him that, if he could believe, 
he would be a Catholic. By the way, Hannen told 
me his grandfather was a Catholic and a Cork man. 
He said his father was" "caught" (whatever that 
means) early and brought up a Protestant. He 
added he would like to explore Cork and find out, if 
he could, the hovel in which his forefathers lived. 
All the same I think he would be better pleased not 
to find out "the hovel." 

The harbour of Queenstown and the town looked 
remarkably well. The weather was good; it was a 
holiday (the Assumption) and there was a regatta 
on. 

At five o'clock we got back to our ship and were 
underway at about 5.20 p.m., and by 10 o'clock we 
had well cleared the Fastnetts (Lighthouse) and had 
lost sight of Ireland. 

The weather was roughish, and when we got clear 
of the shelter of the Irish Coast (the wind was blow- 
ing from the northwest) it was very ugly. At 2 A.M. 
on Thursday I was "overcome," but since then have 
been pretty well, though feeling still shaky. I hated, 
cordially hated up to yesterday evening, several un- 
feeling brutes, who go stamping about in the rudest 
health, laughing and smoking and suffering nothing 
apparently ! However, since I have begun to feel 
better myself, I look with less ferocity on their un- 
feeling behaviour. 



A Month in the United States 15 

Thursday, August 16, 1883. 
T FIND I've run into this day in my previous note. 
It (this day) was almost uneventful. 
The weather was not the worst and was far from 
the best. We've had since we left Queenstown a con- 
tinuous head-wind, i.e., from the west, and the sea con- 
siderably "tumbly." The Captain (Gleadell) objects 
much more to the latter than the former. A head- 
wind gives "go" to the furnaces by improving the 
draught in the engine-room and so enables them to 
get more out of the engines; but the tumble of the 
sea takes the propeller out of the water while the 
vessel pitches and so much power goes to waste. The 
great excitement of the day is an "Auction Pool" as 
to the ship's run for twenty-four hours, i.e., from 12 
o'clock noon of to-day (Thursday) till 12 o'clock to- 
morrow (Friday). It is computed as likely that the 
run will not be much less than 235 miles nor more 
than 255 or thereabouts. The highest number in- 
cludes all above it and the lowest all below it. These 
and the intermediate numbers are put up to auction, 
each bidder to start with paying a dollar for the right 
to bid. The numbers vary in price, No. 235 having 
brought nearly £5. I am writing this on Friday, 
before the actual run is ascertained, but it is thought 
the run will be about 237. The run itself is calculated 
by reference to the ship's latitude and longitude, 
which are in turn calculated by the aid of the sextant 



1 6 A Month in the United States 

when the sun is plainly visible. Without the sun 
clearly visible they can do nothing. 



Friday, August 17, 1883. 

"\"JI Je've about 190 saloon passengers and alto- 
gether on board, including crew and steer- 
age, a little under a thousand souls. The arrange- 
ments are wonderfully good, both in steerage and 
saloon parts. In the former the people supply their 
own bedding, and many have hardly any; but as 
to food they are very well off apparently and often 
get their table supplemented by very substantial 
crumbs from their richer neighbours. I've got a 
stateroom all to myself and am very comfortable. I 
am not as steady as I should be on terra firtna, but I 
feel that the worst is over and that even if the 
weather became fierce I should not wholly succumb. 
The run since 12 o'clock yesterday just announced as 
319, which is considerably below popular expecta- 
tion. In good weather and under highly favourable 
conditions the Celtic will do over 350 miles. 
The order of events for the day is as follows : 

Breakfast, from 9 to 10.30. 

Porridge (which I've stuck to principally), 
tea, etc., and a great number of dishes of the ordin- 
ary English kind. The distinct and only American 
things which we so far noticed are fried oysters, corn 



A Month in the United States 17 

cakes (made of Indian corn), green corn cooked and 
tomatoes. 

Luncheon, from i p.m. to 2 o'clock. 

Cold (but you can have hot) soups. 
Dinner, 6 o'clock. 

Very great variety of ordinary English dishes 
and I've not come across any distinctively American 
dishes. Ocasionally sauces which do not sound Eng- 
lish, as huckleberry sauce, cranberry sauce served 
with goose and joints occasionally. There is a very 
good biscuit, too, called Boston crackers, which are 
excellent when rebaked in the oven and put upon the 
table piping hot. 

As to the people, there seem very few at all inter- 
esting so far as I've yet seen. 

There is a Mrs. Kidd and family by whom I've 
been rather taken. She is a kindly little body bent 
on looking after everybody who needs looking after. 
She has a charming little daughter, with whom I've 
nearly fallen in love. Arthur saw her, and I think 
admires her. There is a lot of doctors; one, a Dr. 

T , told me his income was some $85,000, which, 

I should say, is a great deal more than any English 
doctor or surgeon makes. He seemed to be rather 
a "bounder," and he didn't speak over-generously of 
another M.D. in New York, Dr. Marion Simms, 
who (I afterwards learned) is a surgeon of very 
great repute. 



1 8 A Month in the United States 

Saturday, August i8, 1883. 
'' I ^HE great event to-day (for me) Is the fact that I 
-*- won the Pool on the ship's run. The lowest No. 
was 315, which carried with it all Nos. lower down. 
At auction I bid three guineas for it and was declared 
buyer. There were in the Pool some £18, so that I 
won about £14. 

The actual run was 304 miles, or 15 miles less 
than in the prior 24 hours. 

We are still meeting a stiffish head-wind, i.e., from 
the west (called — I mention this for Charlie's in- 
formation — "fresh breeze" in the log). The sea, 
too, is lumpy, and altogether, if the weather does 
not change, it is not improbable that we shall not see 
the end of our voyage before this day-week. I.e., Sat- 
urday the 25th instant. 

It Is a very striking fact, as Illustrated by the im- 
mensity of the track we are travelling along, that we 
have only seen altogether three sails since we lost 
sight of Ireland. Also a curious fact, that we find 
ourselves attended by solitary seagulls who have to 
go over 1,000 miles before they can get a resting- 
place for their feet, and although we are travelling at 
the rate of from twelve to thirteen knots an hour 
these birds are able, apparently without an effort and 
against a head-wind, to keep pace with us. 

So far I rather share Oscar Wilde's Ideas on the 
subject of the Atlantic. I am disappointed, but I 



A Month in the United States 19 

must add agreeably disappointed in one sense. Thus : 
The waves are certainly not at all as grand or strik- 
ing as I thought they would be; but on the other 
hand the absence of this grandeur makes the actual 
voyage comfortable. I do not mean to say that I 
feel as comfortable as on land, but I am no longer 
squeamish and I move about in at least comparative 
comfort. If on the other hand the Atlantic were to 
assert its grandeur to the extent of washing our hur- 
ricane or promenade deck and so to require the se- 
curing of all the passengers below, I need hardly say 
that matters would be altered very much for the 
worse. 

Sunday, August 19, 1883. 
A /T OST strange ! I left off writing yesterday's Note 
■^^ -^ about 5 o'clock, and a little before six the wind 
went to the south, increased in force and before 
7 o'clock we had a fearful sea on, accompanied by a 
wind which came in great gusts. At first the seamen 
made light of the weather; but it is duly logged to- 
day as "strong gales with violent squalls" which 
Charlie will tell you is strong nautical language. The 
Atlantic certainly did look very imposing. As far 
as the horizon all round, the "white horses" running 
wild and now and then the wind getting hold of the 
tip of a wave scattered it in a shower over the length 
of the ship. At times, too, the ship, which had just 
mounted a small wave, met a big one before it had 



20 A Month in the United States 

time to gather itself together again and in it went — 
bows well down, deluging the decks to quite amid- 
ships. All the time, however, 1 failed to see any of 
the mast-head-high waves which one has heard 
about. The Celtic behaved well — with all the buoy- 
ancy of her race — and although the rolling was trying 
it was, on the whole, so regular and free from jerki- 
ness that I for one managed to preserve my dignity. 

The real unpleasantness was at night. All the or- 
dinary ventilators, which in fine weather are open, 
were closed (all through which water as well as air 
might get) : the portlight's covers screwed down and 
all the passenger-approaches to the decks closed and 
secured. The noise was a fearful compound of 
sounds — the fall of water, the clanging of chains, the 
banging of doors, the creaking of the ship, the start- 
ling rumble of the steering-gear, and now and again 
the frightened cry of passengers. Notwithstanding 
all this I managed to sleep a little — very little — and 
I was heartily glad when morning came. 

To-day is a dull day, for poker and other like 
games are forbidden. There was a kind of religious 
service this morning, at which, however, I did not as- 
sist. 

The run to-day up to 12 noon from previous noon 
was only 286 as against 304 for the previous day. 

It is curious to note the allowance made for differ- 
ence of time. As we get west, an addition is made 
of about half an hour per day. Thus the last twenty- 



A Month in the United States 21 

four hours were computed at twenty-four and a half 
hours. I've not altered my watch since we left Eng- 
land, and I am now about three hours or so in ad- 
vance of the true time. 

I had a long talk yesterday and to-day with an Al- 
bany man about American Government, local and 
general, and his view of it is far from flattering. He 
says corruption is everywhere, from the highest 
stratum to the lowest, and he vigorously denounces 
the caucus system, by which, as he says, the mass of 
uninstructed voters is made to vote almost mechani- 
cally in obedience to the will of the wire-pullers. 
This is very much what Conservatives in England 
say in denouncing Chamberlain and the Birmingham 
caucus. I shall no doubt hear the other side of the 
question before long. The same gentleman was elo- 
quent about the lowering influence of the Irish vote 
In the cities. Ele says they are a great power, if not 
the great power in all the great cities — where for the 
purposes of local or general politics the franchise is 
possessed by all men of a certain length of residence 
— in other words, universal manhood suffrage. He 
says, with some justice apparently, that the vast ma- 
jority of this class have no stake in the country and 
little knowledge of what is best for the country, and 
they are thus left a prey to the corrupt or expert wire- 
pullers who get hold of and use them for their own 
purposes. He points out that the Irish emigrants, 
who for the most part are recruited from the farming 



22 A Month in the United States 

class in Ireland, generally congregate in the towns 
and do not take as kindly as German and other Con- 
tinental emigrants to farming. He says there is prac- 
tically no such thing as failure known amongst the 
classes who have taken to farms. No doubt the vast 
majority of the Irish stick to the towns because no ar- 
rangements have been made for taking them out 
West and placing them on farms there, and they are 
generally too poor and too ignorant to make the ef- 
fort westward for themselves. 

It is, I fear, too true that in the big towns our peo- 
ple are still the hewers of wood and drawers of water. 
I wish they vv^ere no worse than this — but they also fill 
the jails and are the heaviest drain on the poor-rate 
funds ! Of course all this is explicable without in- 
volving any general or grave reflection upon our peo- 
ple. Will the day ever come when these explanations 
shall be no longer needed? 

Run yesterday 304 miles: to-day 286. 



Monday, August 20, 1883. 
A MOST agreeable change ! Since about 1 1 o'clock 
'^ ■*- yesterday the weather has taken up wonderfully. 
The sea is as smooth as Carlingford Bay in ordinary 
weather, and barring a Scotch mist now and then a 
seat on the hurricane deck is everything desirable. 

The ship's company is just now engaged in getting 
up a concert — amateur — for the benefit of the Sea- 



A Month in the United States 23 

men's Hospital, Liverpool. The Lord Chief Justice 
is to preside. It is funny to note the difference in the 
attendance at meals which a change to kindly weather 
makes. In the bad weather few ladies and compara- 
tively few gentlemen appear, but to-day all hands 
turn up and the ladies seem to be beginning to take a 
recovered pride in their dress and general personal 
appearance. There are several young ladies who are 
certainly entitled to rank as good looking, but there 
are no beauties ! 

There is, as I write (11.55) great excitement 
about the run. This is the first fair day's weather for 
steaming. The betting is for between 330 miles and 
340 miles in the twenty-four hours or rather in the 
twenty-four and a half hours. 

P. S. Run 337 miles. 



Tuesday, August 21, 1883. 
'THhis day-week we sailed from the Mersey! This 
*- day-week, do you say? Why, it seems a month 
since, at the least. It is a matter for scientific ob- 
servation that, when the events happening around you 
or in which you are taking part are novel, you fail to 
take correct note of time ; and while in fact it passes 
quickly and unobserved from hour to hour, you exag- 
gerate it as you look back upon what has happened. 
Certainly ^t seems very long since Arthur left in the 
tender. To-day the beautiful weather continues, but 



24 A Moftth in the United States 

it is warmer, balmier than heretofore, which tells 
the instructed amongst us that we are under the 
softening, not to say, melting influence of the Gulf 
Stream. 

[Explain what the Gulf Stream is, Eily, to your 
younger brother and sisters!] 

The salt-water bath this morning was perfectly de- 
licious. You open a plug and in comes rolling the 
pure blue Atlantic water ! I revelled in it. 

Everything went well to-day. Our run the best so 
far, i.e., 348 miles as against 337 yesterday. 

We are all looking forward in expectancy to the 
concert this evening; but this will come into to-mor- 
row's (Wednesday's) Note. It is rumoured there is 
a brilliant public singer amongst us, but apparently 
no one is certain about it. The Lord Chief Justice is 
to preside, and, as announced in the Bills, carriages 
are ordered for 10.30. 

Not the least pleasurable part of the fine-weather- 
results is its effect on the steerage passengers. Bad 
weather for them means unmitigated discomfort, but 
when, as for the past two days, the sea is calm and 
the weather genial, they crowd the 'tween decks, 
babies and all, and seem thoroughly to enjoy their 
surroundings. 

There are few Irish amongst them, and none of 
them present the appearance of abject poverty. They 
are fairly well clad and have not that emaciated look 
which one has too often seen in Ireland and In the 




JOHN DUKE LORD COLERIDGE, 
LORD CHIEF JUSTICE OF ENGLAND 



A Month in the United States 25 

big towns in England sometimes — and which is com- 
monly caused by stint of good food. 



Wednesday, August 22, 1883. 
" I ^HE concert went off remarkably well. The music 
^ selected was all very good, and a considerable 
part of it was very well rendered. I was amongst 
the performers, if you please ! They insisted on my 
giving my name as a decoy for others, but with the 
solemn assurance that I was not to be called into ac- 
tive service. They broke faith with me, however, 
and I gave them (to vary the musical monotony) a 
short recitation, which was received with great ap- 
plause. I will let you all guess what it was : it was 
short, it was blank verse, and it was not serious. 

An old New York doctor (Marion Simms) read 
an account of some incidents of the War of Inde- 
pendence — more or less interesting — and lugged in a 
kind of congratulatory address to the Lord Chief Jus- 
tice, who responded in his siiaiiter-in-modo best style. 
(Bertie, translate this for your sisters.) On the 
whole, the evening was very enjoyable, and we got 
up a collection of £25 for the Seamen's Orphans' 
Home, Liverpool. I should before have said that 
one of the most effective features of the musical part 
of the entertainment was a "Smoke Room" chorus 
in which the only distinguishable sentiment was that 
it was "easy to roll a man down" ; but as the air was 



26 A Month in the United States 

"Coming thro' the Rye" it atforded a good oppor- 
tunity to all so minded to join in the general clamour. 
This morning (Wednesday) I got up at 4.30 to 
see the sun rise from the bosom of the Atlantic; and 
certainly the view from the "Whale's back" (a cov- 
ered part forward) all round was very striking. All 
round, the horizon sharply definable and free from 
fog — nothing to be seen but water — water every- 
where! No sail, no birds, no porpoises, nothing. 
The sunrise itself could not compare in beauty and 
richness of colour with some I've seen from the Con- 
nemara coast. Oddly enough I've not seen any sun- 
set. The weather has at sunset been invariably so 
foggy that nothing could be made of it. 



Thursday, August 23, 1883. 
/^~\ UR run yesterday as recorded was only 246 
^-^ miles, although the conditions generally seemed 
uncommonly favourable. I say as recorded, because 
there is an acknowledged source of error in the mode 
of reckoning. Thus : The reckoning is accurately to 
be made at noon each day, but then only when there 
is no fog to prevent the line of the horizon being 
clearly seen. Then what is called an "observation" 
is taken, by which the position of the ship is definitely 
fixed; but if no such observation can be taken be- 
cause of fog or of the sun being obscured by clouds, 
then the ship's position is got at by "dead reckoning," 



A Month in the United States 27 

which, as I understand It, means starting from the 
last ascertained position, computing approximately 
the distance traversed, taking Into account speed of 
engines, forces of wind, tide, etc., whether for or 
against. 

An observation can also be made from the stars, 
but the operation Is a more delicate one and not so 
reliable; therefore In all cases it follows that, if for 
(say) two days no observation has been obtained, 
the "dead reckoning" computation may be out con- 
siderably; and when on the third day accurate ob- 
servation Is made, which shows the distance traversed 
In the interval from the previous observation, the 
balance only of that distance, after deducting the re- 
corded distances to the two preceding days, Is given 
as the run of the third day. It is clear, therefore, 
that the third day's record may be much less than or 
greater than the actual distance traversed on that day. 

Nothing could exceed the charm of the past three 
days. The weather has been everything that could 
be desired: the sun shining brilliantly; the seas al- 
most smooth, and a pleasant light wind tempering 
what would otherwise have been oppressive heat. 

Even now within 300 miles of Sandy Hook (look 
at your map, Eily) we see but few sailing vessels or 
steamships, but the porpoises and flying-fish are play- 
ing about us, and men, women, and children are all 
on deck, and full of fun and frolic — every one In 
good spirits. 



2 8 A Month in the United States 

Last night's was the last Pool on the run, for we 
hope to be in New York for breakfast to-morrow 
(Friday morning) ; and now the Pool is the Pilot 
Pool. This means that there being (say) twenty-six 
Pilot-boats, all numbered from i upwards, the win- 
ner of the Pool is he who will draw the No. of the 
boat which contains our pilot. My boats are num- 
bered 1 6 and 22, and I am not gratified to learn that 
one of them is supposed to be at the bottom of the 
sea at this moment. 

Last night we had a grand sunset. The horizon 
was hazy, and as usual exaggerated the size of the 
sun, which, sinking in great splendour and dignity, 
recalled vividly 

"The Monarch Day has flung his crown of gold 
And fiery mantle down into the River."^ 

This morning I was called at 5 o'clock, and for 
the first time saw the sun rising from the bosom of 
this great ocean. It was truly a grand sight! The 
Captain allowed me to go up to the "crow's nest" (a 
high lookout point forward) . It is impossible to con- 
vey the striking beauty of the scene. The sea smooth 
literally as a mirror. The sky was a cold greyish- 
blue save where in the east the glow of the coming 
sun crimsoned or began to crimson the horizon — 
"The ]\Iorn in rosy mantle clad." 

All round the horizon, which in unbroken circle 

^Rosa Mulholland's "Irene," in The Coynliill Magazine. Re- 
printed in her volume, "Vagrant Verses." 



A Month in the United States 29 

surrounds you — nothing, nothing to be seen but the 
great waste of waters except the striking briUiant 
pageant in the east, heralding the approach of the 
new Monarch, Day. In fewer moments than it takes 
to write these lines the sun has begun to appear above 
the sharp line of the horizon, apparently twice its 
normal size, and clothed in rich deep crimson, and in 
another short space it has raised itself from the 
waters; and before your eye is satisfied with dwelling 
upon its beauty, it begins imperiously to assert itself, 
and you dare no longer look it in the face. There 
are faiths for which there is less to be said than for 
that of the worshippers of the sun. I think reverential 
awe would, in some sort, be present to most minds in 
view of this morning's glorious sunrise. It must have 
been at such a time as this that the founder of the 
Sun-faith received his revelation. 



Friday, August 24, 1883. 
1VT Ew York ! Brunswick Hotel. Arrived ! I must 
^ ^ first go back a little. We were due at Sandy 
Hook about 5 o'clock this morning, and so there were 
many who did not care to seek their berths at all. 
The weather was delicious. The moon and stars 
shining upon an apparently motionless sea. There 
were sounds of gaiety In all directions — songs, danc- 
ing, practical jokes, and so forth. The betting, too, 
was fast and furious, and the events wagered upon 



30 A Month in the United States 

ludicrous In the extreme ; for instance, we were hourly- 
expecting to meet our Pilot, and many were the wag- 
ers as to his age, whether married or single, whether 
he wore a moustache, whether the years of his age 
were odd or even, and, as a climax of absurdity, 
one of the most exciting events was whether in 
boarding bur ship his left or his right foot first 
touched the deck I I will not stop to recount the 
various issues of those wagers, except to say the 
last-named event was undecided, as he jumped on 
deck! 

About 5 o'clock I first sighted America — that is, 
Sandy Hook, and presently before the rising sun the 
clouds "vamoosed"^ and showed us Long Island on 
our right or starboard hand, and Staten Island on our 
left or port hand. (Eily, recur to your map.) About 
8 or lo miles from New York our ship stopped for 
the Quarantine examination, and here were in wait- 
ing two steamboats for two very different parties on 
board ship. One of these was crowded with the 
local friends of two New York celebrities, Jim Al- 
leger [name illegible] and Will Simpson, who came 
out to welcome the latter home, their boat being gaily 
decorated with all manner of flags. Each of the 
party on board was furnished with a kind of fog- 
horn which at intervals was fiercely blown and pro- 
duced the most discordant sounds — which, however, 

'This is United States slang for "disappeared quickly," from 
the Spanish vamos, "let us go." 



A Month in the United States 3 1 

seemed greatly to gratify the parties immediately 
concerned. 

The other boat was for the Lord Chief Justice and 
party and was the very beautiful steam-yacht of Mr. 
Gerry, a member of the New York Bar, and one of 
the Reception Committee. 

Into this we got, and in this we steamed into the 
very noble harbour of New York. The map will 
show sufficiently the conformation and the relative 
positions of New York, with Brooklyn on the right 
(as we steamed up) and Jersey City on the left. The 
happy idea of our friends (and it was indeed a happy 
idea) was to give us a kind of coup d'ooil of the three 
cities. 

I say at once I had no idea of the beauty and the 
grandeur of the place. Two main impressions were 
forced upon me — one that the atmosphere had a 
transparent clearness which even in Southern France I 
had never seen equalled, and the other that, as befits 
a mighty Continent, things were (except the mere 
aggregation of houses) on a much grander scale than 
in our little islands. 

We steamed up between Long Island (Brooklyn) 
and New York under the famous Suspension Bridge 
which connects the two cities together. In space and 
lightness of appearance (elegance one might say) it 
greatly exceeds anything of the kind I ever saw. 
Compared with our hideous railway bridges over the 
Thames, it is a thing of beauty. It was about 160 



32 A Month in the United States 

feet above our heads and on it are two railroads, 
two carriage roads and a footway about 25 feet 
wide ! 

On each side of the river is the vast shipping of 
New York in the open river, but so well protected all 
round from tempest as to render docks such as we 
have in Liverpool and London wholly unnecessary. 
Protection from tempest, however, would not be 
enough to render docks unnecessary which in London, 
Liverpool, and so forth are necessary in order to se- 
cure therein sufficient depths of water. But in New 
York the tide rises and falls only about 6 feet (as 
against 16 to 30 feet in London and Liverpool), and 
there is ample depth for the shipping at all states of 
the tide along the riverside wharves. 

We steamed up the river and to the New York 
side of two islands on which are built the principal 
City institutions of the jail, reformatory, etc., char- 
acter. The principal island is called Blackwell's. The 
banks on either side, as we sailed up, are pictur- 
esque; and here and there are to be seen traces of 
what were formerly country-house residences, but 
which have been pushed out further by aggressive city 
industries. 

One melancholy spot — melancholy and indeed 
humiliating to an Irishman and to those who are ac- 
countable for the government of Ireland — was 
pointed out. Just outside the city and on a waste 
desolate spot on the river bank are a number of 



A Month in the United States 33 

wooden shanties — wretched structures and affording 
but scant protection from wind and rain. You will 
guess what they are ? They are the abodes now, as 
they for years have been, of Irish squatters — poor 
creatures who, landed here moneyless and friendless, 
were fain to put up with shelter which a well-bred 
dog would scorn. These erections are of course tres- 
passes carelessly suffered, or it may be good-naturedly 
permitted by the owner of the ground so long as he 
has no present use for it; but when he has, out go the 
miserable inmates neck and crop by summary process 
The jails and reformatory system here contemplates 
the productive labour of the inmates as an important 
self-supporting factor. Query. Why not in Great 
Britain and Ireland? Query. Mackonachie's re- 
formatory system? 

Still steaming up, we get into the Long Island 
Sound, putting about stern down the river again — 
this time on the Brooklyn side of the river and Black- 
well's Island. 

Then began our first American meal, and a very 
good beginning it was. Under an awning which 
sheltered us from the fierce heat, and at the same time 
made the most of the cooling breeze, we had a break- 
fast of a very excellent kind and distinctly Parisian in 
Its main features with a dash of Americanism — the 
latter principally In the shape of a champagne cock- 
tail which prefaced the entertainment. Fish cutlets, 
omelette, salad, melons, other fruit, backed up by de- 



34 A Month in the United States 

licious hot corn-cakes, claret, champagne, and coffee, 
made up our bill of fare. 

Before breakfast was over, we had again passed 
under the Brooklyn Suspension Bridge and were pass- 
ing close by a spot full of sad and bitter memories (I 
fear) to many people, but also full of hopefulness to 
many more, I believe. I mean Castle Garden, New 
York, where all the emigrants are usually landed. 
What has already become of those landed to-day? 
Some no doubt have had their destination fixed, but^ 
many, I believe, have come out, hoping for something 
to turn up and not knowing where to look for that 
something. 

Anyway, New York has swallowed them up and 
they have disappeared, making no sign. 

Still we continue steaming down the river, and now 
we have reached the point where the Hudson River 
runs to the north, round the north and west of New 
York. This river is called the Rhine of America, 
and up to West Point, on the way to Albany (which 
is the capital of the State of New York) , is said to be 
extremely beautiful. I propose judging for myself 
one of these days. Finally we land at a wharf near 
Twentieth St., where two carriages await us. Sir J. 
Hannen and son, Martin and myself are deposited at 
the Brunswick, and the Lord Chief Justice is taken 
on to the private residence of Colonel Shepard, 
Barrister, who is the chairman of the Entertaining 
Committee. 



A Month in the United States 35 

I think, but I am not sure, that we are considered 
to be guests here. 

I am greatly charmed by what I have seen, but 
physically I feel thoroughly done up, and as I've 
been up since 4 o'clock this morning nothing would 
be half so agreeable to me as a bath and a good 
sleep. But the latter is not yet attainable. To- 
night we have a serious dinner engagement at which 
we are to meet the city magnates; but to-morrow we 
propose loafing about leisurely on our own account. 
I feel wonderfully well and believe the voyage has 
done me a world of good. Tell Bertie I've not yet 
got my land legs. The floors have just yet a very 
awkward and perplexing habit of rising up to meet 
you, and you keep balancing yourself sailor-like as if 
still on the deck of the good ship — and good ship she 
is — the Celtic. 

Saturday, August 25, 1883. 
T^RIDAY afternoon was spent almost as agreeably 
-■- as the forenoon. Mr. Holmes, Attorney-Barris- 
ter and Counsel for the Northern Pacific Railroad 
Company, insisted on bringing our party to luneh at 
the Union League Club, Fifth Avenue, and after a 
very appetising meal there, we were driven round and 
through and up and down the Central Park, which 
seems to be of great size and beautifully laid out, 
covered with striking statues of Columbian big men, 
and planted with a wondrous variety of tree, shrub, 



36 A Month in the United States 

and flower, which nevertheless all come from this 
great continent. 

The club-life Is an important element in society 
here, and we have been temporarily made members of 
the three principal ones In New York: the Union, the 
Union League, and the Knickerbocker. Their In- 
terior arrangements as to furniture and disposition of 
space are far superior to anything In England; and 
their adoption of the elevator enables them to have 
magnificent and very useful rooms high-up — higher 
than our highest club-houses. If one must be criti- 
cal, perhaps those I have seen are in some respects a 
trifle "loud," according to English notions. At 7.30 
we dined, to meet the Lord Chief at Mr. Shepard's 
house, which, as becomes the son-in-law of the mighty 
Vanderbilt, Is grand, and luxuriantly furnished. 
There are three Vanderbilt houses together, that is, 
that of the Vanderbilt and those of two of his sons- 
in-law; and they are so arranged that, while normally 
wholly independent of one another, they are capable, 
on great receptions, of being all thrown into one, 
when the effect may be guessed. 

At dinner each guest was asked to put his auto- 
graph on his own and every other guest's menu. I 
enclose mine. I have appended a note of the titles of 
those of the guests I learned about. 

Mrs. Shepard appeared a reasonably Intelligent 
and good-looking lady (for an heiress) and was 
free from all airs. She only appeared before 



A Month in the United States 37 

dinner, as it was what the Americans call a "Stag" 
dinner. 

Mr, Sullivan (himself obviously of Irish descent) 
remarked we were a good typical representative 
party of Englishmen. I staggered the party by tell- 
ing them that of the six, only the Lord Chief and his 
son were English, for that Sir James Hannen was 
only an Irishman once removed, and that Martin and 
I were Irish down to our toe-nails. 

The dinner was good — the company I thought no 
way brilliant in conversation; but it is fair to remem- 
ber that formal dinners are not the best places to 
make the most of any man's humour. I went to bed 
thoroughly tired; my bed rocking a little; and I slept 
the sleep which "knits up the ravelled sleave of care," 
for I awoke at 7 o'clock to a bright clear morning, re- 
freshed and cheerful. 



Sunday, August 26, 1883. 
/~\n Saturday night Martin received through me 
^-^ (I was already an invited guest) an invitation 
to an excursion under the auspices and at the charge 
of Henry Villard, President of the Northern Pacific 
Railroad Company. It is in connection with the 
opening by them of a new line right through from 
St. Paul (see map) to Portland on the Pacific. We 
are in advance of the main body, which we are to join 
at St. Paul, d. v., next Monday. It will probably save 



38 A Month in the United States 

us a good many pounds in railway tickets and will be 
pleasant withal. 

Martin and I will probably leave the excursion 
party at Portland, and, if possible, find our way back 
by San Francisco and the Southern Union Pacific — 
probably by St. Louis, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and 
New York. 

The Cathedral Church of Saint Patrick, Fifth 
Avenue, is the church of New York, as far as archi- 
tectural beauty and grandeur are concerned. It is a 
very grand building indeed, not unlike the Dundalk 
Church, but on a much grander scale, and with two 
spires or towers still incomplete, and for which it is 
computed £50,000 sterling will be needed. It is 
made of a stone which is called here marble, but 
which seems to me very like our granite but much 
whiter, having much less mica in it. The principal 
Protestant Church is Episcopal. Low: it is called 
Trinity Church, and is remarkable in this — that every 
stone of it was imported from England I This is not 
an exceptional case, it seems; indeed a Pennsylvania 
gentleman informed us that it was the case with many 
of the older churches in that State. Martin and I 
were both struck by the smallness of the Catholic con- 
gregation. The church was not half filled. True, 
it was High Mass and this is the dull season, but still 
we thought it remarkable. At 6.30 p.m. we crossed 
to Jersey City, which is divided from New York by 
the Hudson River; and by the Erie Railway we left 



A Month in the United States 39 

for Niagara via Buffalo, arriving at the Falls about 
7 A.M. 

The night in the Pullman Car and breakfast in the 
morning (I know you will be surprised, Madam) 
were not at all disagreeable. The country en route is 
in many places extremely picturesque; and a fair 
sprinkling of population, with here and there a big- 
gish town, are to be found all along the line. Still 
the cultivation is of the scratchy-patchy order; the reg- 
ular fencing of fields only seen at intervals, and, com- 
pared with the appearance of England, Ireland, and 
Scotland, the whole thing looks raw, unkempt, and 
wild. 

I may say here, by the way, that the only thing 
in which towns and country here are (so far as I 
have noticed) inferior to the old country, is the mat- 
ter of roads and streets. These are very bad in New 
York, and nowhere along the line of railway have I 
noticed any regularly made roads, although there 
seems to be wisely reserved everywhere, in town and 
country, ample space for street and road accommoda- 
tion. 

At Niagara the day was broiling, and our first care 
was to engage a carriage (at an exorbitant price). 
With water enough to turn the world's machinery, the 
local authorities had not utilized a drop to lay the 
roads, inches thick in dust. 

What shall I say about Niagara? Well, to begin 
with, for the first time I find the description given of 



40 A Month in the United States 

this remarkable spot fairly do it justice as far as de- 
scription can. Its wonderful beauty and grandeur 
must be seen to be appreciated. 

The vast waters of lakes Michigan, Huron, and 
Erie lend their mighty forces to send the water on Its 
way by Lake Ontario to the St. Lawrence River, with 
terrific pressure through the narrow channel formed 
in rock which connects Lake Erie with Lake Ontario 
and which is called Niagara River. A short way 
above the Falls the rush of the waters Is divided by a 
small island called Goat Island. The fall to the east 
of this island Is called the American Fall, that to the 
west the Canadian; the latter is by far the grander in 
every way, depth of fall, volume of water, etc. 
Above the fall the effect Is most striking. The great 
mass of boiling, angry water tears furiously along and 
seems suddenly to drop into the bowels of the earth 
and disappear — so sheer and sudden is the fall — and 
the roar of the fallen and falling waters is all that 
is noticeable. Below the fall the effect is remarkable 
and startling. Notwithstanding the enormous vol- 
ume of water and the height of Its fall, it is literally 
true, that within a few yards of the Fall the surface 
of the water Is perfectly clear and almost quiescent 1 
Fancy this, and after a fall of some i6o feet over the 
sheer cliff ! In fact, the depth of the river is about 
another i6o feet, and It would appear that the de- 
scending water hides Its fury under the calm surface- 
water and only reappears some two miles lower down 



A Month in the United States 41 

the river. In other words, there Is a strong under- 
surface current which comes to sight again about the 
spot where the Rapids begin, in which the ill-fated 
Captain Webb lately met his death. These rapids are 
simply parts of the river where the channel is rather 
contracted, and the fall in the river bed considerable, 
so that there is not only a rapid but a troubled, broken 
rush of the waters. It is surmised that in the course 
are rocks and that Captain Webb, partly sucked down 
by one of the under-currents which prevail, was vio- 
lently carried against some of them. It appears a 
small steamship successfully ran the rapids, and on 
the American side, they are already building another 
for the like purpose. The exactions and the mode of 
exactions at Niagara are intolerable. A squint at 
Nature anywhere here costs you from fifty cents to a 
dollar. It is not creditable to the two governments 
to allow this state of things. 

In the evening we left for Chicago via the Grand 
Trunk Railway, through Port Huron, which is on 
Lake Huron, and we arrived at 9 A.M. at Chicago. 
The population along the line, en route, seemed 
rather thicker than on the Sunday's journey, and the 
land better tilled; but this would be no safe indication 
of the state of things farther away from the line. 

I am greatly exercised in my mind as to the trees 
in the United States and in Canada. I have, as yet, 
seen no finer timber — for instance, none at all equal- 
ling what is to be seen in any English demesne. But 



42 A Month in the United States 

more: the trees have not the look of age the English 
trees have. It cannot be that the existing trees are 
the result of a new and recent planting. I shall get 
some one to answer my doubts for me. So far, I 
have not been able to exclaim with any confidence — 
"This is the forest primeval."^ On all sides are to 
be seen signs of vigorous and recent clearance — 
what is called lumber clearance by the natives. The 
houses almost invariably in the country places and 
frequently in the towns are made of wood; but no- 
where have I seen any sign of want — on the contrary, 
there are visible everywhere satisfactory indications 
of rough plenty and progress. 

At the country stations (called here depots) I've 
come across a good many Irishmen and Scotchmen, 
but comparatively few Englishmen. Generally, with 
all, the expression is one of satisfaction and content 
with their condition, but occasionally an Irishman 
will tell you that living is very dear and that he could 
live just as well at home. I've not yet seen any Irish 
Land Settlement, and I am very doubtful whether I 
shall. I intend to try. 

Tuesday, August 28, 1883. 

ARRIVED at 9 o'clock at Chicago, Grand Pacific 
Hotel. 
This is certainly a very rerharkable but not at all 
interesting city. Its staple businesses are grain-stor- 

'The first words of Longfellow's "Evangeline." 



A Month in the United States 43 

ing, pig-killing, meat-preserving, etc., etc. These are 
useful trades, but not soul-inspiring. All the same, 
there are some remarkable points in the history of the 
place. The city is not more than fifty years old. 
Originally it was entirely built of wood, but in 
1 87 1 a fearful fire reduced two-thirds or more 
of the town to ashes. Since '71 it has not only been 
rebuilt in stone with noble buildings and fine streets — 
even wider than those of New York — but it has more 
than trebled its population, until now, with a popula- 
tion approaching three-quarters of a million, it is 
about second in population and certainly second in 
trade of all the cities of the States. Its hotels are 
enormous and with all possible modern comforts and 
improvements. The Palace House is said to be the 
largest hotel in the world. 

Still with all this it is far from being a graceful 
or even a cleanly city. The streets are certainly wide, 
but they are shockingly paved, and they are spoiled 
by numerous tramways : again the streets are not in 
all cases continuously and regularly built upon, and, 
out of the principal thoroughfares, there is a raw, un- 
finished, generally unkempt appearance, which recalls 
the early description of American cities by Dickens. 
In one respect the city authorities pre-eminently de- 
serve credit. They have secured for the Chicago of 
the future and the present the most extensive parks to 
be found in connection with any American city, or 
probably any city in the world. They have in the 



44 A Month in the United States 

parks and along the Lake (Michigan) on which the 
city abuts, secured for the public for all time, some 
35 miles of drives through well-wooded and well-ar- 
ranged parklands. The lake (pray understand, 
May!) is about as big as England and Scotland put 
together, and makes Chicago, to all intents and all 
appearance, a seaport. In the offing you see big 
three-masted vessels, and there is a large quay or pier 
along and opposite the entrance of the River Chi- 
cago, which river floats vessels of large tonnage right 
into the heart of the city. 

I made the acquaintance of two local celebrities 
(Irish), namely Paddy Ryan and Michael McDon- 
ald. Paddy may be dismissed with the statement 
that he is a fighting-man lately defeated in the twenty- 
four-foot ring by a compatriot, Sullivan. He is a Tip- 
perary man. He left Ireland at eight years of age. 
He now keeps a liquor store and seems a good-na- 
tured lumbering chap of about six feet high and 
weighs about seventeen stone. Michael McDonald 
deserves more than a passing word. He, too, keeps 
a liquor store, a gambling house (in spite of the au- 
thorities), and he "runs" a granite quarry. But his 
principal importance arises from his political position. 
He is supposed to direct and control what is called 
the rowdy element in Chicago — largely made up of 
our countrymen — and this gives him very great local 
influence. He is a rough diamond, not over-scrupu- 



A Month in the United States 45 

lous, with a decisive, masterful way about him, which 
clearly marks him out as a leader of men. He shows 
great knowledge of European politics, or at least of 
those of France and Great Britain. He is keenly 
Irish, but was loud in his condemnation of the assas- 
sination and dynamite policy. His friends claim for 
him that he returned the present Mayor of Chicago 
— the first Democratic mayor returned for Chicago 
for thirty years. 

By far the most interesting feature of our stay in 
Chicago, however, was a visit to Pullman, a small 
town about sixteen miles from Chicago and called 
after the inventor of the travelling and sleeping car, 
which is also called after him. No one who has not 
had to travel long distances, and by night, can fully 
appreciate the boon to many, many thousands which 
the Pullman car really is. Since last Sunday (I am 
writing on Wednesday) we have travelled about 
1,200 miles and spent two nights in the Pullman, and 
I affirm I do not feel now as tired as I have fre- 
quently done travelling from London to Liverpool. 
It is difficult to say where the difference (I know you 
dislike sleeping cars) in favour of the system exists, 
but it does and markedly. You can move about, go 
out now and then to end of car, in the open air, easily 
alight at each depot, occasionally vary the monotony 
by comfortably washing your hands and brushing your 
hair (If you have any) and, when nature calls out 



46 A Month in the United States 

for sustenance, you are served with what you need in 
a cleanly, comfortable way in your carriage. And 
finally when night has closed in upon you, you can go 
to bed, really to bed, and with a sense of refreshment 
and relief. I have said nothing about a point which, 
however, greatly concerns the comfort of the journey, 
I mean the fact that the attendant is unceasing in his 
perambulation up and down, and down and up the 
train, with papers, books, cards, fruit, bon-bons, etc. 
The nature of the contract and relation of the Pull- 
man Company to and with the Railway Company 
which runs their cars is remarkable. The Pullman 
Company lets the cars to the Railway Company, and 
the former undertakes to keep it in repair for three 
cents per mile traversed, and it also supplies a con- 
ductor and a porter or attendant for each car. The 
Pullman Company then receives all that is paid for the 
use of their car, and the Railway Company receives 
only the ordinary railway fare. 

It is clear that in this country of so-called equality, 
one thing that most strongly recommended the Pull- 
man was the fact that it enabled the rich to create 
the clearest possible inequality in the conditions of 
even ordinary travel. The special luxury of the very 
rich is to have a special Pullman of their own, with 
sitting-rooms and bedrooms, rooms for servants, and, 
above all, suitable accommodation for your cook! 
This is the kind of thing that the Vanderbilts and 
Jay Goulds and Pullmans do in their own case. 



A Month in the United States 47 

I admit this is a long preamble to my visit to Pull- 
man. 

The second in command at the Pullman Company 
(now a limited company) is Robert Caird, brother to 
Mrs. Thomas Threlfall, to whom I had a letter of 
introduction. Nothing could exceed his kindness. 
He brought us down to Pullman, gave us lunch, took 
us over the works, explained the history of the place, 
and finally sent us on our journey to the northwest, 
rejoicing, and furnished free with best Pullman tickets 
as far as St. Paul and Minneapolis on the Missis- 
sippi River! 

The history of Pullman City is indeed remarkable. 
In 1880 there were not ten houses to be seen within 
sight of what is now a town of about 3,000 inhabi- 
tants. The greater number of the inhabitants are 
work people, at the manufactory of railway cars, of 
which of all kinds (including the famous Pullman 
sleeping-cars) a greater number is made than in any 
works in the world — probably in any three or four 
like works. The city is built, and I may add, gov- 
erned upon the highest principle of parental govern- 
ment, a system of government not generally in fa- 
vour. Here it is, and it ought to be in favour, for the 
greatest regard has been had to the health, improve- 
ment, and amusements of the people. There is a 
theatre, billiard-room, reading-, book-, lending li- 
brary, savings bank, . . . put together. Excellent 
and neat dwelling-houses at moderate rents for the 



48 A Month in the United States 

men furnished with all reasonable modern appliances 
of comfort, and all of health. 

It is, in truth, a model town. Wages all round 
are high, and the lady who presides over the lend- 
ing-library has a hundred dollars a month, equal to 
about £200 a year of our money. A good many of 
the men are Irish, but not the best paid, in other 
words, not the doers of the best skilled work. 



Wednesday, August 29, 1883. 
T EFT Chicago at 12.30 for St. Paul and Minne- 
-*-^ apolis and arrived at about 6 o'clock, A.M. The 
journey was uneventful and nothing very startling, 
till we crossed the Mississippi River. It is certainly 
a grand volume of water, greater than anything we 
can show, until our rivers gain breadth and dignity 
from the sea ; but still I was disappointed. I expected 
something even greater and grander. No doubt, 
when we recross it some 500 miles farther south, on 
our way home, it will fully come up to my expecta- 
tions. St. Paul and Minneapolis are both built or 
the river, which is navigable for ships up to St. Paul. 
The river is a great transport agency, not only for 
river steamships and vessels, but also for the most 
enormous lumber (that is, timber) rafts, which float 
literally several thousand miles. Minneapolis is fa- 
mous for its milling and its flour. The mills are 
worked by the water-power of the Mississippi, which 



A Month in the United States 49 

is said for this purpose to be the finest in the world. 
The flour, too, is largely imported into England and 
Ireland, and its excellence is owing to the super-ex- 
cellence of the wheat grown in and along the valley 
of this great river. 

You see on all sides of you at the small railway 
depots great elevator grain stores, in which are 
loaded the grain bought from the farmers all 
round by the local agent of the big millers in the big 
towns. 

Part of the district we traversed to-day had a per- 
fectly English rural look at places — comfortabl^ 
homesteads and well-tilled land. At other places the 
lands for miles are tenantless and left as the waters 
of the great flood left them. I could not help think- 
ing that the crush and struggle lor life in some small 
corners of the earth ought not to be as severe as they 
are, and that they would not be if only men knew bet- 
ter the uncrowded places ready to receive them, and 
ready to give up wholesome plenty at but small la- 
bour and entreaty. 

Two things I have not yet seen, this side of the 
Atlantic: a really big tree and a mountain. Not 
that the country is not here and there fairly well 
wooded, but the timber is not of great growth; and 
not that the land is flat, for the places are after 
all few where you do not see from your carriage 
window undulations pleasant to the eye to dwell 
upon. 



so A Month in the United States 

Thursday, August 30, 1883. 
' I ^O-DAY for the first time we saw between Minne- 
-*- apolls and St. Vincent a prairie stretching away 
in all directions, an unbroken, tenantless plain — per- 
fectly level, on which (but for the tape-line of the 
railway) the hand of man had never laboured. It is 
certainly, if not a striking, a very suggestive sight. 

At one or two places, say at Carlisle and at Rothe- 
say, a very different sight was to be seen. Here the 
land had a well-cultivated appearance; in some fields 
the steam-reaper was at work; in others the men and 
women were building up the sheaves into stacks; 
in others the steam-plough was already at work, 
breaking up the land for the spring wheat, which is 
the best and fetches the highest prices. Here is a 
curious fact — curious at least to me. The wheat is 
sown in the end of August or beginning of Septem- 
ber, and it has got a few inches above the ground 
when the hard weather sets in. In England this 
would generally be fatal; the frost nips the early veg- 
etation. But in America the snow covers it up and 
shields it until the opening of spring, when the heat 
melts the protecting snow-cover and affords to the 
ground and the young vegetation the very moisture 
which they want. 

We stayed at St. Paul only long enough to have a 
fair survey of the city, and then on again, and finally 
via St. Vincent, Emerson, and St. Boniface we 



A Month in the United States 5 1 

reached Winnipeg at 6.30 A.M. (Friday). From 
Chicago to this place the distance is between 700 and 
800 miles. 

Winnipeg, Friday, August 31, 1883. 
"X^ZiNNiPEG is a town only about four years old 
* ^ and has now between 25,000 and 30,000 peo- 
ple in it ! It has the marks of a new town in every 
way, just as the new American towns have. Fine 
wide streets, irregular houses, a fine brick building 
side by side with a wooden shanty, always dirty, 
muddy, unpaved streets, and a half-wild, half-tamed 
look about it ! We are going to drive presently, and 
I must break off. 

I have not altered my watch since I sailed from 
Liverpool — an age since ! It will give Eily some idea 
of how far west we have got to say that while at Win- 
nipeg the true sun-time is about 11.50 A.M., In Lon- 
don the true sun-time as by my watch is 5.40 P.M. 
You, Madam, and Clara, will be drinking your after- 
noon tea about the time that we are rising from a late 
breakfast. 

Winnipeg, Saturday, Sept. i, 1883. 
"^^ 7e spent the day very pleasantly. Mr. C. R. 
^ Brydges, the Land Commissioner of the Hud- 
son Bay Company, at once called on us and arranged 
our day for us in a very agreeable way. 
,' First, I went to his office and had a long and inter- 



52 A Month in the United States 

esting talk about the affairs of the Company. He 
looks upon the shares as being intrinsically worth the 
high prices (up to £39 and £40) paid last year for 
them. He thinks that in ten or fifteen years the capi- 
tal will be reduced by repayments from land sales to 
a nominal amount, and that, too, without substan- 
tially reducing the land-holding of the company. He 
thinks the great "boom" of last year in land was very 
injurious to Winnipeg, but that the town is sure from 
its situation and the rich lands which surround it to 
acquire a great position. In answer to my objection 
that the Canadian Pacific with its twenty-five mill- 
ions of acres and the North West Land Company, 
with its five million acres (to say nothing of smaller 
land companies and of the government land), would 
be greatly in the way of the Hudson Company in their 
sales, he said that was so, but that the Hudson 
Company had an honourable tradition behind them; 
that they sold on uniform, generally known terms; 
that their title was clear; that they insisted on no con- 
ditions as to settlement or the breaking up of the 
land — in fine, that the Hudson did sell, and did sell 
almost preferentially to the other companies. He 
complained that a good deal of the land round Win- 
nipeg had got into the hands of speculators who were 
holding for the rise, instead of putting it into market 
or cultivating it. 

As to the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, he 
thinks it will have an important effect in opening up 



A Month in the United States 53 

Northwest Canada ; but he seems by no means clear 
that the line will pay its shareholders. He thinks 
that after passing Brandon, the line by going farther 
north than it does would have followed the fertile 
land, whereas in its present direction westward it 
crosses what he contends is the American desert, 
which he says is to be found continued in Texas, 
Arizona, etc. 

We saw a good deal of the town, which is very in- 
teresting. Here you may see the town growing un- 
der your eyes — the very prairie being trodden down 
into the semblance of a new street, while a hundred 
yards farther stands a building of a most imposing 
kind, such as would not disgrace Manchester or 
Liverpool. In the unoccupied places wooden shanties 
are erected by temporary dwellers — tradesmen who 
are for the time working in the town; farmers or in- 
tending farmers who have not yet settled their loca- 
tion west or northwest. Good masons are gettmg 
about $3 a day — equal to about 12s. 6d. English 
money. Carpenters are getting about the same. The 
price of a shave is from 15 to 25 cents, i.e., from 8d. 
to IS. However, it is to be added that these high 
prices do not hold all the year round. 

We visited Portage la Prairie, which is about 50 
miles from Winnipeg and on the Canadian Pacific 
Railway. 

It is greatly inferior to Winnipeg in size and In 
every other respect. It, too, has recently sprung up. 



54 ^ Month in the United States 

We got a carriage here and drove miles out of 
the town to see the recent settlements on the prairie, 
and this was a sight of the very greatest interest 
to me. 

As a matter of picturesqueness I am disappointed 
in the prairie. There is a certain attractiveness in the 
flat uniform richness of the landscape covered with 
a golden wheat harvest — and a pleasant suggestive- 
ness of rude comfort and plenty; but it is dull, very 
dull. Not a mountain, nor even a hill to be seen — 
as smooth as the calm sea and as flat. Except in the 
neighbourhood of the rivers, there are no trees to be 
seen, and even these do not appear to acquire any 
great height. The absence of the trees is a curable 
matter, and already one sees signs of planting in and 
about the houses which promise speedily to add some 
diversity to the landscape as well as afford to the 
homesteads valuable protection against the fierce win- 
ter winds, which at times sweep across the plains with 
a fury almost resistless. 

The houses are all of wood, and none of them 
large. The majority of the settlers here are Scotch, 
and, while the land seems fairly well tilled, there is 
not much attempt at neatness in their gardens, offices, 
yards, or houses. But all whom we have yet seen in 
Canada seem well fed and well clad. Except 
amongst some wretched Indians there is not the 
slightest appearance of want. As Martin remarked 
yesterday while watching the children file out of 



A Month in the United States 55 

the school, "Not a darned stocking on one of 
them!" 

About five miles from Portage we went into the 
house of one Woods. His father bought some years 
ago 160 acres of land partly in cultivation, paying 
$3^ an acre, equal to $560, or in English money to 
£112. In the kitchen the dinner was on the table. A 
great appetising dish of ham and eggs flanked by 
beer-jugs and vegetable marrows, cabbage and pota- 
toes. In the yard was a lot of poultry — geese, tur- 
keys, ordinary fowls, also pigs and a dozen milch 
cows. His family consisted of two brothers and two 
sisters and a couple of servants, and when asked what 
he did with his fowls, eggs, pigs, butter, milk, etc., 
his invariable answer, given with a satisfied chuckle, 
was "Eat 'em." 

Now this was a case in which the land had been 
bought, but the Dominion Government gives 160 
acres for $10, if within a fixed number of years the 
farmer settling breaks up a certain number of acres 
for arable purposes ! Just think of this, and then of 
the miserable patches of wretched land on which the 
Irish peasant so often tries to make out a living ! The 
two difficulties are fuel and the winters. The former 
difl[iculty will, it is believed, speedily disappear, as coal 
or a superior lignite is supposed to be plentiful in Can- 
ada ; and this will of course go greatly to mitigate the 
winter's severity. The winters, although severe, 
tested by temperature (frequently 30° below zero). 



^6 A Motith in the United States 

are very dry and bracing, and several people tell me 
are not to be compared in discomfort to a severe 
muggy winter in England. 

In our drive we visited two encampments of In- 
dians with their tepees or tents in the open plain. 
They were of two tribes — the Objibaways and the 
Sues (I am not sure of my orthography). The for- 
mer are said to be a harmless race and to be native in 
the country. The Sues came to Canada across the 
American frontier, after having (it is said) perpe- 
trated a series of atrocities in Minnesota. This about 
a dozen years since. The native Indians are treated 
very kindly by the Government. They are falling 
away (but not very rapidly) before the advance of 
what the Whites call civilisation; and the Govern- 
ment reserves certain districts for them and also sup- 
plies them with a certain amount of food. They are 
generally well spoken of, and one of the oldest of the 
Hudson Bay Agents told me that, so long as faith 
was kept with them, they kept faith. Their tents are 
wretched in the extreme. Blankets to lie upon and 
some wood to cook their food, but no sign of stores 
of food or drink or clothes. To a slight extent they 
are absorbed by the v/hite population; and, as half- 
breeds, some of them rise to power and distinction. 
Indeed the present Prime Minister of the Province of 
Manitoba — Mr. Knockway — is a half-breed. The 
Sues are physically not inferior to Whites as to size, 
muscularity, etc., the others decidedly inferior. 



A Month in the United States 57 

On Saturday evening we dined at the Manitoba 
Club as guests at a dinner given to Mr. Archibold (a 
cousin of the late Mr, Justice Archibold), who was 
on a visit here, but who was the first Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor of Manitoba. The speeches were to me most 
interesting. The ex-Gov^ernor gave an account of his 
first entry into Winnipeg in 1870 (exactly thirteen 
years ago) , when his journey from Montreal occupied 
twenty-six days and when the census of Winnipeg 
then taken showed seventy houses and a population 
of about 350! Now the population is between 25,- 
000 and 30,000, and you can get from Montreal in 
about 48 hours! 

Sunday, Sept. 2, 1883. 
A T THE Saturday's dinner we made the acquaintance 
-^^^ of the Catholic Archbishop Tache — a Frenchman 
— who was one of the most honoured guests at the 
banquet. There was also the Protestant Bishop — a 
Doctor Macrae. They seem to get on remarkably 
well; there is no religious bickering, and even on the 
vexed question of education they pull together. There 
is a University of Manitoba which is merely an ex- 
amining and degree-granting body (as distinguished 
from a teaching body), upon the Board of Directors 
of which each religious body has fair representation. 
The Archbishop is a remarkable man. He has made 
many missions amongst the Indians and has effected 
large conversions amongst them. He, too, speaks 



58 A Month in the United States 

well of them, and says they are difficult to deal with 
only when they get contaminated by admixture with 
the Whites ! To-day we went to High Mass at his 
church, St. Boniface — the name of the place and of 
the church — and heard a French sermon. St. Boni- 
face Is across the Red River over against Winnipeg. 
It is a French Settlement, and to this day the school 
lessons are taught alternately in French and in Eng- 
lish ! It was quite curious to notice In the village the 
French surnames as well as the French names descrip- 
tive of the particular business carried on: "Epicler," 
"charcutier," etc. I see I have not mentioned one 
main peculiarity of the prairie land, which renders It 
so easy of cultivation. Stones are almost unknown in 
it ! Fancy this In view of the braes of Klllowen ! The 
plough runs without let or hindrance through a black 
mould varying In thickness from two to eight feet. 
So rich Is the land that so far manure Is unnecessary, 
though it must in time be used, and In some places the 
same crop has year after year without rest or Inter- 
ruption been taken out of the land. This, however, 
is considered a too exhaustive and an unwise system 
to pursue. 

Monday, Sept. 3, 1883. 
" I ^His evening we start for Glyndon right south (re- 
-■- tracing our steps) and then go on to Fargo on 
the Northern Pacific line, where we hope to join the 
great Vlllard Excursion Party on their way to the 
Pacific Ocean at Portland. 




WILLIAM yi. EVARTS 



A Month in the United States 59 

Tuesday, Sept. 4, 1883. 
T AST night we left Winnipeg by the evening train, 
-■-^ and traveUing via Emerson, St. Vincent, and 
Glyndon, arrived at Fargo, a station on the Northern 
Pacific Line. At Emerson we were joined by the 
Hon. Broderick, M.P. for a division of Surrey (son 
of Lord Middleton). 

We reached Fargo at 8 o'clock and found the place 
en fete in expectation of the arrival of the excursion 
trains carrying the Villard party. 

The only thing noticeable about the decorations 
was that they were formed from the products of the 
district, wheat, oats, Indian corn, and so forth. There 
were in all four trains, on the first of which were our 
host Villard, President of the Northern Pacific Rail- 
way, Sir James Hannen and Lord Justice Bowen. 
No. I train was bang full, and our directions were to 
get into the first train in which there was room ; but 
it was found there would not be room until No. 4 
arrived. 

However, No. 2 duly arrived and we were 
promptly admitted and found ourselves amongst 
friends, viz. — Grey, M.P. (not Gray), Henry Ed- 
wards, M.P., Horace Davey, M.P., Q.C., W. M. 
Evarts (the Leader of the U. S. Bar), Rev. Stem- 
thall (Manchester) , Bruce (Engineer, London) , Sam- 
uelson, Jr., M.P., Buxton, M.P., Bryce, M.P. The 
swell of our party is Grant (General Ulysses), who 



6o A Month in the United States 

was, as you know, twice President of the U. S. At 
every station he is the centre of attraction. Occasion- 
ally he gives them a word or two — no more — but gen- 
erally the proceedings begin and end with hand-shak- 
ing — the little ones being lifted up to touch the hand 
of their great General. There is some genuine inter- 
est about Grant, but no enthusiasm such as we under- 
stand it; but Americans tell me it is a weakness they 
do not indulge in. Every place we come to is gay 
with flags, triumphal arches, sentences of welcome in 
mammoth letters, made of flowers, sheaves of grain, 
etc. "Welcome Villard," "The capital city (of the 
particular State) welcomes President Villard's 
guests," and so on. 

At most of the towns, big and little, a troupe of 
well-dressed little girls rush into the carriages with 
bouquets of flowers for each traveller. 

What greatly impresses me is the harmonious way 
in which all seem to join in making the whole affair 
"run," as they call it. I have not noticed a policeman 
taking any part whatever in the order of proceedings; 
and, looking at the crowd, it is impossible to do as 
you can in England so easily — distinguish classes. 
They are all one class and even in the style and man- 
ner of dress^ — except when in actual working clothes 
— there is but little difference. 

I ought earlier to have mentioned in reference to 
General Grant that, noticing his apparent popularity 
I asked whether he was a likely candidate for the 



A Month in the United States 6i 

next Presidency. The answer (and that by a friend 
of his) was, "No, he was suspected of corruption 
when in office, and is not trusted." It is very curious 
to note that no pubHc man is free from this imputation 
of corruption in popular opinion — whether he be a 
political person or merely president of a railroad or 
of any other public company. Even judges and juries 
are accused of corruption, and certainly at times justly 
accused. It is the worst trait I notice in the national 
character that these things are mentioned with a 
shrug and a grin — as if they must be, and the men 
engaged in them are not, when detected, overwhelmed 
with contempt and disgrace as they commonly would 
be with us. It is common, too, to hear speech of the 
bribery of the members of the local Legislatures and 
governing bodies and even of the United States legis- 
lative body. Since the days of Walpole this has been 
unknown (at least in the grosser mode) in England 
— except in a few notable instances. 



Bismarck, Wednesday, Sept. 5, 1883. 
/'~\ UR yesterday's journey extended from Fargo to 
^-^ the town( Bismarck) , which is the capital of the 
corn-growing State of Dakota. The considerable 
places we passed were Tower City, Valley City, 
Jamestown, Cleveland, Crystal Springs, Sterling, and 
Clarke. 

Near Tower City we had what' might, with less 



62 A Month in the United States 

care than they exercise here, have been a serious acci- 
dent. We have two engines to our train (No. 2) and 
the axle-tree of the tender of the second of the engines 
broke right in two from some flaw in the iron. This 
was discovered in time to prevent the chance of the 
engines leaving the line — indeed the passengers in the 
train did not know that anything untoward had hap- 
pened until the train stopped. 

The delay of a couple of hours was a great delight 
to many. It would have been to you, Madam, if you 
had been here, and to you, Rosa, especially, and above 
all to you. May. We were in the middle of the un- 
broken prairie — several miles from the nearest town 
or indeed dwelling-place : the weather was delicious, 
the air crisp and delightfully bracing — the sun shin- 
ing brightly and the great world of prairie flowers 
(and botanists say it is a great world) giving forth 
for the occasion all their beauty and all their fra- 
grance. 

There are some three or four ladies of the party, 
and these and several of the gentlemen set themselves 
in a determined way to make a specimen-collection. I 
am not as you know, Madam, learned in such matters, 
but I will venture to beg your gracious acceptance of 
the enclosed sample of the wild rose of the American 
prairie. 

It was very amusing to note that, although the 
scene of our disaster was remote from the busy haunts 
of men and women, yet very soon after it happened 



A Month in the United States 63 

vehicles were to be seen converging to us from all di- 
rections across the prairie. Their occupants, ladies 
and gentlemen, would not disgrace Regent Street in 
the season. But I think this full-dress appearance 
was to be accounted for by the fact that the settlers 
were on their way to greet us in the nearest town. 
We reached Bismarck about 2 this morning — sleeping 
in the cars. Under the circumstances the night was 
as pleasant as could be expected, but certainly not so 
pleasant as the day. The members of the party move 
freely from carriage to carriage along the whole 
length of the train, chatting pleasantly. Then some 
write, some read, some play whist (very bad whist) 
and so the day passes quickly along. To-day there 
was some serious work to do in Bismarck. Mrs. Vil- 
lard was to lay the foundation-stone of the capitol 
here in the capital city of the State, and accordingly 
we were ordered to be in line by six o'clock. A great 
procession formed and proceeded in great state and 
with every variety of equipage to the locus in quo. 
(Frank will, if needful, translate.) 

I did not go : the proceedings are now going on as 
I write. What is now? Well, I will tell you. I have 
not altered my watch since I sailed from Liverpool, 
and I am pretty well able to tell at any given moment 
what you are all about — whether getting up or going 
to bed, sitting down to breakfast or rising from the 
dinner-table. As I write, it is with you about 4.30 
P.M., and Clara is beginning to think it is time Gas8 



64 yi Month in the United States 

brought her afternoon tea. Here, by the sun's true 
time, It is not quite 10 A.M.! I am of course getting 
farther behind you as I get more and more westward. 
What the difference will be when I get to Portland 
and San Francisco I don't know ; but I will note and 
tell you. 

(Frank ! Be good enough to explain for the benefit 
of your younger brother and of your younger sisters 
the principle on which time is reckoned with reference 
to the sun, and further explain how starting from 
Rostrevor as a fixed point you get before that time if 
you go east, and fall behind it as you go west. Do this 
in a few lucid sentences, intelligible to the meanest 
comprehension.) 

The sight (or the sights) of this morning was the 
famous Sitting Bull, the Chief of the Sioux Indians. 
(By the way, I have previously spelt this by sound 
and incorrectly.) I shook hands (as part of the pro- 
gramme) with the old ruffian. It was he who In Min- 
nesota and Dakota cut to pieces a number of Ameri- 
can soldiers a few years ago under command of a 
dashing cavalry officer called Colonel-General Custer. 
After this business a number of the Sioux crossed the 
border (as I think I have already mentioned) into 
Canada. He is a remarkable looking man. He is 
medium height and broad-shouldered. His face is 
certainly fine, and his eyes large, dark-coloured, and 
thoughtful. His forehead is broad and low — cer- 
tainly a clever head and take him altogether I should 




SITTING BULL 



A Month in the United States * 65 

certainly not set him down as a cruel or cold-blooded 
man. He wore a crucifix round his neck; but the su- 
perintendent who acted as translator did not seem to 
think that there was much real significance in this 
Christian and Catholic emblem. By a curious cus- 
tom amongst the Sioux the men anoint their hair and 
plait it while the women allow it to hang dishevelled 
on their shoulders. 

I must here note, while it is in my mind, a remark- 
able characteristic of all the towns and cities however 
new on this great continent (I include Canada). It 
is this: They have amongst them (even when their 
streets are not properly made and when they are de 
ficient in many of the commonest conveniences in old 
places) all the very latest inventions. Thus in every 
business place of any pretensions, in most professional 
men's houses, and in many private houses there is elec- 
tric light. One lady at Winnipeg informed me she 
always ordered from her butcher and other trades- 
people by telephone. Do not tell this to Mrs. Fryer 
(who is, I hope, very well) or she will be wanting it 
in Harley Street! Again, the electric light is not un- 
commonly to be found in towns of a population of 
2,000 or 3,000. At Fargo they had an electric light 
fixed about sixty feet high, which is visible forty 
miles off and by which (they say) you can read a 
quarter of a mile off. At Bismarck there was a strong 
illustration of this early goaheadness. Fire is a great 
enemy whom they dread, looking to the easily igniti- 



66 A Month in the United States 

ble character of their buildings and in some places 
their scant supply of water. You find, therefore, their 
Fire Salvage Department well organised in every 
town; but in Bismarck they have got what I suppose 
is hardly or but little known in England, namely, a 
chemical fire engine directed to the extinguishment of 
fire by means which its name indicates. 



Thursday, Sept. 6, 1883. 
{En route) 

T WISH to begin to-day's note by a word of apology 
^ to Sitting Bull. I am told by well-informed Amer- 
icans that S. B. is not the ruffian I have called him, 
and that the better opinion now is that he was not 
guilty of any unwarlike or treacherous conduct in re- 
lation to the defeat of General Custer's force, which 
was fairly met by S. B. in the open, but met by a 
vastly superior force to that of the American General. 

There is little to say descriptive of Bismarck. De- 
scribe one of the new cities of the States, and you have 
described all. 

The presence of the Celtic-Irish element speedily 
showed itself in one who boldly announced himself as 
a vendor of "Krubeens." I should not be surprised, 
Madam, if (notwithstanding your well-known na- 
tional feeling) it were necessary to explain that this 
means "pig's feet." One other Irish item. A grand 
printed notice, obviously official, announced that all 



A Month in the United States 67 

who helped the great show deserved to be encouraged, 
but all who did not were to be "boycotted" ! There 
is obviously no Coercion Act in force here. 

A little out of order I want to record the first place 
in which I saw a hill, or, as they call them, "Bluff." 
As we approached Valley City, a low range of hills 
appeared and were as grateful to my eye, tired of the 
monotonous prairie, as water to the thirsty palate. 
But these hills have a special importance in the con- 
formation of the country. They are, in fact, the di- 
viding line of two great water sheds. It is startling, 
but it is true, that the waters falling to the east of 
them fi-nd their way after thousands of miles to Hud- 
son Bay and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and those 
falling to the west to the great rivers of the south and 
the Gulf of Mexico. 

Outside Bismarck and within half a mile of the 
town we cross the mighty Missouri. You recollect 
Henry Russell's song; I've not heard it since I was a 
boy: 

"To the West, to the West, to the Land of the Free, 
Where mighty Missouri rolls down to the sea. 
Where a man is a man if he's willing to toil 
And the humblest may gather the fruits of the soil." 

Well, Missouri is a mighty but it is also a muddy 
river. The water is now low, but the brown devastat- 
ing mark of the winter's flood is to be seen high and 
far up on the banks, forcibly suggesting what it may 
be at its best or worst. 



68 A Month in the United States 

From this the country is to the eye, and in fact, less 
rich in pasture and less cultivated, and bluffs are to be 
found in all directions rising suddenly, apparently, 
from the plain graced now and then, but sparsely, 
with trees. 

At little Missouri we came upon scenery really 
grand. I am poor at description. Imagine an amphi- 
theatre of mountains rising precipitously from the 
level of the railway track which winds around their 
base for more than the semicircle. Imagine a flat 
plain inside the circle — flat and monotonous with one 
great exception. Right in the centre of the circle rises 
a blufl higher than the rest, standing alone — its sum- 
mit a great plateau and its base washed by the little 
Missouri. I was startled when asked to ride up and 
down this great stone castle, but like several others I 
got on a wiry mustang pony and very soon found my- 
self climbing something very like a wall. Coming 
down was even worse, and I should not be at all in- 
clined to repeat the ride. But I must say the view 
from the plateau was very fine and was a specimen of 
scenery new to me. The sides of the hills were com- 
pletely denuded of all clay by the fierce rains of the 
winter and spring and yet vegetation of varied tints 
clung to their sides, and, bathed in the rich glow of 
the approaching sunset, presented a marvellous bit of 
glorious colouring. At our feet the little Missouri 
lay, and but for the presence in one spot of our train 
— itself a summary of the material civilisation of 



A Month in the United States 69 

nineteen centuries — we could truly say we looked upon 
the scene exactly as it appeared to the Crowfeet In- 
dians or other aboriginal inhabitants before the ag- 
gressive foot of the white man was ever planted upon 
it. 

Close by, a certain Marquis — son of the Duke of 
Vallombrosa (it is said) — has established a great cat- 
tle ranch. A month ago an attack was made upon 
him by the cowboys or cattle herds whose interests he 
was supposed to be affecting. He shot one mortally 
and maimed two others: since which his days have 
been peace. He is a liner looking man and bigger 
than Parnell, but reminded me and others of the 
latter. At 6 o'clock this morning (I was up at 5.30) 
we reached the Yellowstone River and for miles our 
track ran so close to its banks that I could almost dip 
a long stick into the bright clear water — for the water 
was bright and clear. Indeed it is the first river which 
was not muddy and which can boast a pebbly bank. 
Some of these reaches in the early morning sunlight 
looked perfectly lovely. On one side of the train the 
bluffs lifted their heads; on the other ran the river. 
The flat spaces at the base of the bluffs and sometimes 
lying between them are, it appears, by some geologists 
accounted for thus : They allege that the intervening 
spaces were originally deposits of coal or of lignite, 
and that in some great incendiary act of Nature they 
were destroyed. 

At 10.30 A.M. to-day (Thursday) we reached 



70 A Month in the United States 

Billings, where I now write. Billings is another 
mushroom city in the United States of which geog- 
raphers knew nothing until, I believe, about two years 
ago ! It is already one of the principal towns of the 
State of Montana (the capital town is Helena), 
which State is reputed of enormous natural resources. 
Again and again the thought is thrust upon me, in 
view of all the wide unoccupied expanse of rich land, 
why there should be such a crush and struggle for a 
corner in a squalid town or on a bleak sterile hillside ? 
I do not shut my eyes to the fact that love of place of 
birth is an important factor, but it may have, after all, 
an exaggerated importance given to it. 



Friday, Sept. 7, 1883. 
(Fifth Despatch. En route Livingstone to Helena) 
'T^HE charm and interest of our excursion seem to 
-*- vary and intensify from day to day. 

Yesterday the leading incident in our proceedings 
was perfectly unique. Never again probably will 
such a sight be seen as we saw yesterday at Graycliff. 

Graycliff is on the borders of the Crow Indians' res- 
ervation, which comprises the enormous space of 200 
square miles. It had been arranged with their chiefs, 
who are, and have now for years been friendly with 
the Whites, that a great assembly of their tribes 
should take place in celebration of the opening of this 
great trans-continental line. Such an assembly has not 



A Month in the United States 71 

been seen since in their war paint they some years back 
made their last stand for the land from which the 
murderous and civilising White sought to expel them. 
Their efforts were fruitless, and they fell back before 
a civilisation which came to them heralded by blood- 
shed and rapine. It is perhaps hardly to be wondered 
at that under such circumstances they did not feel at- 
tracted to the manners and customs of their con- 
querors. 

Since then they have been practically pensioners of 
the United States Government which grants them this 
large reserve and besides supplies them with food. 
They do no regular work. The reserve is little better 
than a poor-house from which they will assuredly be 
expelled as soon as the necessity if not the con- 
venience of the all-grasping white man requires it. 

Fenimore Cooper has invested the American In- 
dians with Spartan qualities and virtues and with a 
simple dignity and grace peculiarly attractive. If his 
descriptions were true and did not originate In his own 
poetic mind, the Indians of to-day are greatly degen- 
erate. On the whole, it is conceded that In this, as In 
every conflict between the Interests of the aborigines 
and the Invading Whites, the former have been un- 
justly treated and have cruelly suffered, and It may 
well be that contact and conflict with the subduing 
Whites have lost them their best characteristics and 
that they have acquired in exchange the worst quali- 
ties of their conquerors. Certainly to-day reliable 



72 A Month in the United States 

opinion does not strongly pronounce for them. Par- 
ents love their children, but children do not equally 
love their parents, and a son is not supposed to be un- 
dutiful if he leaves his aged mother to die in the shelter 
of a tree, and modestly supplied with water and the 
sweet root of the camus. They degrade their women- 
kind, whom they treat as fit only to be hewers of wood 
and drawers of water. It used to be said that the In- 
dian children suffered pain and showed it not. Well, 
I can vouch for the fact that, when yesterday at Gray- 
cliff a chubby Indian boy of about six years trod on 
the prickly cactus, he bellowed with a vigour which — 
well, any little boy of my acquaintance could not sur- 
pass. 

I find I have been moralising lengthily and prosily. 

The tribes inhabiting the Crow reservation were 
to exhibit to their quondam enemies the war dances 
with which they had been wont to excite their war- 
riors before battle against their spectators of to-day. 
There was something to me peculiarly melancholy and 
saddening In the exhibition — these men degrading 
their rites and humbling their mighty chiefs (some of 
them with the mark of the white man on his fore- 
head) to make an American holiday. But here — I 
am moralising again. 

I wish some one with an eye to colours and detail 
and withal some power of description had yesterday 
been in my place. You, Madam, or you, Rosa, or 
you, Clara, or you, Eily. 



A Month in the United States 73 

As we approached Graycllff, we were struck by the 
array of horses grazing on the plain, numbering sev- 
eral thousand and certainly exceeding the number of 
the tribe, which was computed at 2,500. Nearer still 
to the town appeared many hundred tepee tents 
presenting in shelter of the bluffs, which formed a 
harmonious background for them, a striking and pe- 
culiar picture. Close by, many of the old, very old 
squaws, sat on their hunkers — weird, wrinkled, im- 
passive, and, it may be added, filthy. Here and there 
the little ones appeared, some of them really hand- 
some, with faces as impassive almost as those of the 
old crones. 

Close by the town, but on the unbroken prairie, was 
the focus point of attraction. The people of the dis- 
trict for miles round had gathered in, dressed in their 
best and showing off in their best teams. The Indians 
had already formed themselves in a semicircle, some 
standing, some sitting, some lying lazily and dreamily 
on the ground, some on horseback, and all dressed in 
their most fantastic dresses and painted in their most 
fantastic colours. But this applies only to the men of 
the tribe; the squaws, huddled together, looked 
moodily on. The resources of the tribe in the matter 
of adornment were exhausted on the chiefs, for the 
women were dirty, squalid, and showed no sign of 
even passing comeliness except in the case of two or 
three of the very young girls amongst them. 

But what is this horrible row ? It is the full choral 



74 A Month in the United States 

strength of the Crow-foots in the air. The band sat 
in a semicircle apart, beating drums, its members ap- 
parently vieing with one another in the production of 
the most discordant conglomeration of sounds I ever 
listened to. It seemed to rouse the performers to ac- 
tivity. The master of ceremonies — whose face was 
cross-barred in yellow and black with a fantastic 
headdress and a gorgeous tail made up principally of 
peacocks' feathers and the management of which re- 
quired a good deal of care — now stirred about 
amongst the chiefs and selected the performers for 
the opening dance. It requires a person with some 
imagination like you, Rosa, to give a graceful descrip- 
tion of what to my prosaic eye seemed ungraceful in 
the extreme — striking, fantastic, unique but still un- 
graceful. 

A hideous dish of cooked dog's meat was placed in 
the centre and round it the chiefs performed what 
was described as a religious rite with excited gesticu- 
lation and most uncouth utterance. Presently the 
music became more discordant than ever, and now the 
dancers gathered more energy of voice and limb, and 
are supposed to be shadowing forth and inspiriting to 
deeds of danger. This was the war dance. Later 
there came love dances (still confined to men) whose 
meaning one could not, without help, guess. I re- 
moved to a distance on a slope, and shutting one's 
ears to sound and sufiiciently far off not to observe 
the disagreeableness of the Indians, the scene was as- 



A Month in the United States 75 

suredly of a striking kind — the beauty of the place, 
the glory of the setting sun, the bright colouring, the 
fantastic movements and the commanding figures of 
the Indians side by side with the men of the White 
race — all combined to form a picture such as will 
probably never again be seen. Here were the repre- 
sentatives of an old dynasty which was almost dead, 
and, close by, in the luxurious steam equipage (a com- 
pendium of the material civilisation of nineteen cen- 
turies) the successful invader, the ruthless, aggressive, 
all-conquering white man. 

These were some of the notions which crowded in 
upon me while we rolled away from Graycliff, as the 
sun went down. 

Between Graycliff and Livingstone in the night we 
lost some fine scenery. Dimly in the night I saw the 
outline of the Crazy Range with its leading moun- 
tain, called *'01d Baldy." 



Livingstone, Friday, Sept. 7, 1883. 
A "^7" HEN I looked out of my berth at 5 o'clock A.M. 
this morning, close upon us was a noble range 
of hills which reminded m.e forcibly of the Mourne 
Mountains — the chief amongst these being Sugar-loaf, 
shaped like Slieve Donard. It is this which is called 
"Old Baldy." We are here at the gate of the won- 
derful Yellowstone country in which the American 
people are reserving as a national playground a 



76 A Month in the United States 

space some 3,000 miles square at an altitude of some 
7,000 or 8,000 feet above sea level, and filled with 
wondrous natural points of interest. It is intended on 
the return journey to spend two or three days specially 
at this point; but as I go to San Francisco and home 
by a line farther south this pleasure will not be open 
to me. 

In December, 1882, there were not fifty people in 
Livingstone. To-day the population is 2,500 and 
there are baths, banks, concert halls, and a skating 
rinkl The electric light and the telephone are, of 
course, here. 

Before the morning dew had been dried up, we 
started to make the ascent of the great spur which 
prepares us for the still greater rise, a little further 
on, of the great Rockies themselves. 

So gradual has been our ascent that it is startling to 
be reminded that at Livingstone we are 4,500 feet 
above sea level. 

This eccentric line represents very closely the pro- 
file of the line of ascent we have to make. I need not 
say that the principle of the inclined plane (explain, 
Cyril, for May's benefit) is largely brought into 
requisition; but that makes our progress all the more 
interesting, for we wind round and round the moun- 
tains and looking up their sides we see the made road- 
way we have to traverse terraced high above our 
heads. 

As we go up a steep incline (about i in 30), our 



A Month in the United States 77 

train parts in two; but the automatic brake instantly 
stops the downward descent of the part left behind, 
and the engine quietly and safely backs to recouple it. 

Should a breakdown of a serious kind occur, they 
have the instant means of communicating with any 
part of the world for help. How ? You may well 
ask, for we are often miles away from human dwell- 
ing-places, and the only thing which seems to hold us 
to the world of men is the single wire of the telegraph 
which accompanies us even in our greatest solitude. 
But of what avail is the telegraph, for it is miles be- 
fore we can reach a telegraph station? Ingenuity, 
however, has even overcome that difficulty. With 
each train is an electric battery, and with each battery 
a clerk able to operate, who by simply hooking on to 
the single wire is literally in communication with all 
the world. 

At last we reach the city of Bozeman — verily a city 
— 5,714 ft. above the level of the sea, and an old city, 
too, as things go here, for it is upwards of ten years 
old. Between this spur which we have surmounted 
and the Rockies lies the valley of the Upper Mis- 
souri, fertile in a high degree and singularly beauti- 
ful in places. The Missouri, which you will recollect, 
we met before more than once, is here nearer its 
source — indeed it is the junction of the rivers Galla- 
tin, Madison and Jefferson which here first take that 
name — and it is as yet uncontaminated by contact with 
the populous haunts of men. On either side of it the 



78 A Month in the United States 

mountains rise, well clad even to their very tops, often 
sheer up from the plain, whose richness of soil con- 
trasts strongly with the sterile, rockbound character 
of the hills. 

It is notable that in the upper part of this valley, 
between five and six thousand feet above the sea, the 
crops are remarkable for their abundance and yield. 
I had here (at Bozeman) a few words with 
Pat Brady, who works on the N. P. R. Company. He 
is from County Armagh (my own county^) and has 
been in the United States ten years. He was well fed 
and clad and content. He enquired with interest 
about Ireland; but when I asked him whether he 
would like to go back, he answered with a grin that 
he would not mind, but he would require to be fur- 
nished with a return ticket to the United States before 
leaving them. 

Our journey for the rest of the day was for the 
greater part along the Missouri, and finally the four 
sections or divisions of which the Excursion Party is 
made halted at a place called Butler, a little way up 
the great and final ascent of the Rockies. 

This halt was a pleasant incident. It afforded 
friends separated in the actual journey the pleasant 
opportunity of intercourse. 

'Ballybot is on the Armagh side of Newry 



A Month in the United States 79 

Saturday, Sept. 8, 1883. 
A T 5.30 we left Butler for the final ascent. The 
-^^ morning is lovely. Everything looking its best — 
though iiideed my American friends say spring is the 
time to realise the full beauty of this region. The 
scenery was what I understand by "Alpine" in its 
character and the air sharp, cold, clear, and bracing 
— had a peculiarly exhilarating effect. 

In advance, often miles off, we could see the trestle 
bridges over which we had to cross. Several of these 
are above 60 feet high: they are all made of wood: 
none of them are built on piles let into the ground; 
and at a distance they present a very fragile, spidery 
(is this adjective allowable?) appearance. Mr. 
Bruce, C.E., and General Hutchinson, however, said 
they were really very strong and showed very skilful 
work. Up, up we go, slowly but surely, the very en- 
gine seeming by its heavy pulsations to express its 
sense of the difficulty before us. Some of us notice a 
well-defined track which we cross and recross and 
never get far away from at this particular place. 
What is it, think you? Originally an Indian trail, it 
was used for years and years by the agents of the 
Hudson Bay Company, and formed part of a road 
some 600 miles long or so from Port Benton on the 
Missouri in the east to Walla-Walla (now a station 
on the Northern Pacific Railway) in the west. What 
a history is involved in the sight of these two road- 



8o A Month in the United States 

ways side by side — so different in character, but whose 
identity of track and direction evidenced the wise ob- 
servation of our forefathers in times so much less ad- 
vanced in science than these. 

About two miles short of the summit several of us 
elected to walk on in advance of the first section of our 
train and we were well repaid. Walking the open 
trestle bridges was not pleasant, though not at all 
dangerous, so long as you keep a cool head; but 
the sense of active motion, the fresh glow it 
brought, the delightful view all round, and the an- 
ticipation that in a few minutes we should have 
reached "tip-top" and, turning our back on the east, 
be looking for the first time down on the Pacific 
slopes — all combined to give us a keen sense of enjoy- 
ment. 

Up we go, winding in and out of the mountains; 
make a final bend; know we are then 5,813 feet above 
ocean level and that the vast extent of land that opens 
before us in valley and hill, in river and in forest, 
leads us to the great Pacific! Here is the dividing 
line in the watershed between east and west — which 
determines what water shall lose itself in the im- 
mensity of the Atlantic and what in the Pacific Seas. 
Still, I may as well incidentally mention we are still 
about a thousand miles from the most westerly point 
of our journey, although we are about 1,200 miles 
west of Lake Superior! Just recall, Frank, the dis- 
tance from KInsale Head to the Giant's Causeway, 



A Month in the United States 8i 

and it will perhaps help you to realise what these dis- 
tances mean ! 

We reached the summit about 8.30 A.M., and at 
1 1. 1 5 we struck the river known as Clark's Fork, an 
important tributary of the Columbia River, which, 
however, only assumes its great proportions and im- 
portance after it leaves the Lake Pend d'Oreille. 
(See your maps; I will try and send one.) Clark de- 
serves more than a passing word: it is after him that 
the river is named. He and a man named Lewis at 
the instance and expense of the United States Govern- 
ment of the day, from May, 1804 to Septem- 
ber, 1806 were engaged in exploring the approach 
from the east to the Pacific by a northern route 
which this very day reached its completion ! Their 
story is full of interest, peril, and adventure. 

After passing Garrison City, which is named after 
President Villard's father-in-law, we reach the spot 
(named at least for the day, "Spike Point") at which 
the final spike is to be driven and the trains pass to 
and fro for the first time on an unbroken continuous 
line of railway communication from Lake Superior 
in the east to Portland in the west. This point is 
1,198 miles from Lake Superior and 847 from Puget 
Sound. A large building had been erected for the 
speakers and the more distinguished guests; and 
round it, on the untilled ground, which has never yet 
yielded to human labour, there were gathered to- 
gether a motley but most interesting assemblage. 



82 A Month in the United States 

For miles round the settlers, farmers, traders, In- 
dians, Governor, and other local authorities had come 
to assist at the completion of a great work which 
brought their country for the first time within civilised 
limits. All manner of equipage had been brought 
into requisition from the buggy and team which 
would not have disgraced Central Park, to the homely 
farming wagon filled with the settler's family group. 
There were inequalities of style, dress, and equipage 
amongst them, but there was no underfed or badly- 
clad man or woman to be seen in all the thousands. 
The order preserved was really remarkable — no 
crushing, hustling, or unseemly noises. Each one 
seemed to think that in some sort it concerned him 
that the proceedings should be seemly and in order. 

I will not stop to describe the actual work of com- 
pletion. In almost shorter time than I take to write 
it, a certain number of lengths of sleepers and rails 
were laid and spiked until the final spike alone re- 
mained to be driven. This done by President Villard, 
to whose energy and ability so much of the final suc- 
cess is by all attributed — guns were fired and huzzas 
sent up to celebrate the consummation. During all 
the preliminary proceedings I was most interested in 
Madam Villard (to whom I was to-day presented 
by my friend Dr. Borchardt of Manchester). She 
is the daughter of Mr. Garrison, who fought and suf- 
fered years back for the cause of the Negro. She is 
about forty years of age, pleasant of face, and neat 



A Month in the United States 83 

and graceful of figure. She is chatty and wholly un- 
affected. To-day when she was not engaged in inter- 
esting her guests her face wore an anxious expression, 
and I am sure that no one was more relieved than she 
when the complete success of the proceedings was 
fully assured. 

But I have to do also with the speakers. There 
were famous men to speak, and I was anxious to have 
the benefit of a rare opportunity of listening to some 
American orators whose reputations stand very high. 

President Villard read a very excellent speech, 
sound in sense and good in tone and taste, the effect of 
which would have been greatly increased could it 
have been spoken and not merely read. Then fol- 
lowed the man whom all the other American speak- 
ers concurred in calling (and they ought to know) 
the "great orator" of the day — I mean my friend, as 
I am glad to be able to call him, W. M. Evarts, Bar- 
rister. I made his acquaintance in London, now a 
good many years since, through the introduction of 
my distinguished and learned friend, Mr. J. P. Ben- 
jamin. Mr. Evarts Is certainly a remarkable man. 
He is above sixty years of age, but his manner Is vi- 
vacious and his tongue as ready as it was twenty years 
since — so say his friends and admirers. His head and 
face are striking and present a highly intellectual type 
of what we are In the habit of calling the Yankee. 
His effort was clearly to be the effort of the day. To 
him was assigned the part of historian and apologist 



84 A Month in the United States 

of the Northern Pacific Line, and this was hardly a 
subject best fitted to illustrate his undoubtedly great 
powers of speech. But more. These are days in 
which you spealc not so much to the audience facing 
you, as to that greater audience — if one may so call 
them — who are addressed through their morning 
paper. It was (as Mr. Evarts told me) a regrettable 
necessity that his speech was in print before he left 
New York, for otherwise it could not appear (as it 
did) /';/ extenso the morning after its delivery in some 
500 newspapers throughout the land. This circum- 
stance certainly detracted from its effect. The effort 
to remember what had been written, and the frequent 
reference to the printed proof took away from the 
powerful oration that character of spontaneity which 
is one of the greatest charms of human utterance. 
Towards the end there were one or two passages of 
great dignity and power which suggested, if they did 
not quite realize, the grounds on which Mr. Evart's 
great reputation is based. His friends said it was 
not one of his happiest efforts, and they added that 
at this period of his history he is at his best when he 
is called upon for an impromptu speech and upon an 
occasion when he can give the reins to a pleasant wit 
and a caustic tongue. As a companion, I know no 
more agreeable man. Kindly, humorous, cheerful, 
and full of anecdote, personal and historical, spiced 
occasionally with just enough sarcasm to sharpen the 
palate — I know no one with whom I would rather 



A Month in the United States 85 

travel on a long railway journey in an interesting 
country. 

I'o him succeeded Mr. Teller, Secretary of the In- 
terior under President Arthur. His effort was not a 
success. Good, earnest man, I doubt not, but he has 
studied in a school of oratory which savours more of 
the religious conventicle than of the legislative forum. 
To him succeeded Mr. Billings, whose speech was 
on the whole the greatest success of the day. Mr. 
Billings was formerly a lawyer practising in San Fran- 
cisco. He afterwards took to commerce and was for- 
merly President of the Northern Pacific Railway 
Company. His figure and face do not readily lend 
themselves to oratory; but, when he is fairly under 
way, you cease to criticise or to notice personal ap- 
pearance. His language is forcible and copious, his 
manner impressive, and although one would be in- 
clined to say there was exaggeration in his style, his 
earnestness impressed his auditors, and they were in- 
deed fairly aroused, and for the first time in the pro- 
ceedings, to enthusiasm. 

To him succeeded Sir James Hannen as the first of 
the speakers representing the guests. He spoke for 
the English guests. Sir James Hannen is hot an ora- 
tor according to American ideas of oratory. There 
are no sonorous, high-swelling sentences, no studied 
risings or fallings of the voice, but there is exceed- 
ingly good taste, an appropriateness of language and 
a dignity of manner which together produce a most 



86 A Month in the United States 

favourable and agreeable Impression. It is, I think, 
to the credit of the good taste of our American friends 
that many of them considered Sir James Hannen's 
the best speech of the day. 

Herr Gneist and Dr. Hoffman from Germany fol- 
lowed — the former a distinguished member of the 
German Parliament, and the latter a celebrated pro- 
fessor of chemistry. There was nothing to note in 
the speech of either — save that Dr. Hoffman in very 
bad taste indulged in sneers at the supposed miracles 
of the early and middle ages and said that this was 
the true age of miracles according to and not against 
the order of nature — such miracles, in fine, as the 
completion of the Great Northern Pacific Railway. 

Then followed speeches from the Governors of the 
several States and Territories through which the line 
of railway runs. At this stage I began to tire of 
American oratory at best. We had in these speeches 
some of the worst characteristics, and none of the 
best, of American oratory. They were turgid, ex- 
travagant in language and sometimes in gesture, and 
seemed principally directed to claiming for their re- 
spective States the right to the title of Garden of 
Eden. One of them, however, reached the climax — 
the man from Washington Territory — when he told 
us that all the trees there were 250 feet high and at 
least five feet in circumference, and that his territory 
was the real centre of the United States. 

At last a tiresome but very interesting day Is 



A Month in the United States 87 

ended; and, as we walk back to our cars some way 
from our focus point, there are returning, on this side 
of Clark's Fork and on that, the happy settlers, 
peaceably but merrily, and rejoicing that they have 
assisted at a great national work — Important to the 
Nation, but specially Important lo them who for seed- 
time and for harvest-time, for themselves and for 
their children, have cast their lot In the Far West. 



Sunday, Sept. 9, 1883. 
A FTER the successful ceremonial of yesterday we 
-^^^ continued our way during the night and through 
the State of Montana and Idaho westwards. 

Two things have most struck me since we crossed 
the Great Divide. Up to that point we had seen no 
timber of any great magnitude; and for miles and 
miles through Minnesota, Dakota, and even Mon- 
tana In Its eastern part we had sped without seeing 
any forest. Indeed the only trees visible were com- 
monly along the rivers' banks or in their Immediate 
neighbourhood and accurately indicating their course. 
Now, with the exception of a few places, forests are 
to be seen in all directions — dense, interminable as 
far as eye can reach. These forests are stately, too, 
and I do feel at last that I see them as they are, 
primeval. Although still at a considerable height, 
the plantations frequently run right up to the very 
hill-tops and against the evening sky they look at 



88 A Month in the United States 

times exceedingly picturesque standing like sentinels 
on guard. 

Another thing. Since we crossed the Great Di- 
vide the atmosphere has not been nearly so clear as it 
was east. There is frequently a mugginess about it 
that reminded me of Liverpool and Manchester. It 
is said that this is caused by the great forest fires, and 
from what I have since seen I can quite believe it. 
These fires are generally intentionally begun, but get 
beyond control. Thus the railway for their line clear- 
ance, a settler for his land clearance, and so on, will 
set a forest alight, and, this done, it is not in the power 
of the incendiary to stop or to control it, should a 
period of drought and a high wind prevail. We have 
through miles of forest seen here and there the living 
fire busily engaged in its work, destroying the noblest 
trees and sending up volumes of thick smoke to hide 
and disfigure the landscape and permanently affect 
the atmosphere. The trees are certainly very fine, 
generally pine and occasionally noble cedars, and they 
scent the air delicately and pleasantly whether alight 
or not. 

One other thing I have seen on the Pacific side 
— a clear, pebbly-beached river — Clark's Fork — by- 
and-by to merge in the noble Columbia River. 

Through a rich country we passed rapidly during 
the night, and the Sunday forenoon — past Missoula, 
Hell's Gate (which name gave rise to a number of 
jokes of a more or less sulphurous character) . On 



A Month in the United States 89 

and on until we came in the afternoon to Lake Pend 
d'Oreille — so called, it is said, because of the district 
being inhabited by Indians whose peculiarity was their 
earrings. This does not seem a very satisfactory ex- 
planation of the French name. 

It is a beautiful lake. Some of our party went in 
the Steamer Henry Villard — others, including my- 
self, preferred remaining ashore to "look up" a 
Chinese settlement close by. Until we crossed the 
Divide the Chinese in no way attracted our attention; 
but since that crossing they are to be seen and in num- 
bers at every stage of our journey. 

Oscar Wilde, I am told, has come to the conclusion 
(since American society has looked on him coldly) 
that the Chinese are the only people in America who 
present any fit subject for intelligent study. David 
A. Wells (the celebrated leader of the Free Trade 
Party in the States) thinks the future of the Chinese 
nation the most im.portant factor in the future of the 
world. Putting the population of China at from 350 
to 400 millions, and bearing in mind that there is not, 
it is supposed, a single steam loom in the country or 
indeed any of the great recent contrivances for the 
economy of human labour — what, he asks, will be 
the effect upon the world when this great mass of in- 
dustrious humanity works with all best appliances 
which human science and ingenuity can contrive? It 
is an interesting problem. Meanwhile they are be- 
coming an important element in American economy. 



90 A Month in the United States 

In politics they are nil: in the labour market almost 
throughout the States their influence tells. It is cer- 
tain they are industrious, frugal, temperate, and on 
the whole cleanly in their personal habits. Their 
great offence in the eyes of labour is that they are 
willing to work for what is considered poor pay — 
or, in other words, for less than the white man will. 
It is in the rudest labour principally that they now 
compete, and, it follows, principally compete with 
Irishmen. With the latter consequently they are very 
unpopular, and in some places where the Irish voice is 
strong, as in San Francisco, the press, or portions of 
it, urge legislative interference against the Chinese. 
It is charged against them that they have introduced 
virulent diseases previously unknown along the west- 
ern coast; but the evidence of this, as I have heard the 
case put, is not convincing. One is reminded of the 
charges rashly made at times in England against the 
Irish labouring class and from similar motives. 

Meanwhile it seems to be doubted whether to the 
employer there is any real economy in Chinese labour. 
General Haupt, of the Northern Pacific Railway 
Company, says there is not, and I have heard his view 
elsewhere confirmed. Anyhow they have built a great 
part of the Northern Pacific from the Divide to the 
Pacific. As we sped along, we came upon their en- 
campments again and again in forest glades, by the 
shores of the rivers and lakes, on the outskirts of the 
cities — always a community apart. It is to be said 



A Month in the United States 91 

to their credit that they insist, when they can, on being 
located near water for purposes of personal cleanli- 
ness. I am glad to see that Ward Beecher during a 
recent visit to San Francisco has had the courage to 
speak out for the Chinese against a prejudice which, 
although unreasoning, bids fair to be dangerous. 

In the larger towns the Chinese engage in town in- 
dustries, of which the favourite one with them ap- 
pears to be that of laundry-men. 

Mr. Wells is a remarkable and an interesting man. 
He is, as I said before. President of the American 
Free Trade League, and has through good report and 
evil report kept flying the Free Trade banner. He is 
beginning to influence his country, but the fact is the 
States are so prosperous, wages are so high, trade on 
the whole so good, capital accumulating so fast that 
men do not feel called upon to stop and enquire 
whether there is not a change which might properly 
be made which would quicken even that great pros- 
perity. Mr. Wells is a regular storehouse of learning 
upon this question, and he found me so willing to 
learn from his lips that he has promised me a full 
copy of his Free Trade publications. 

As far as I can gather, except in Pennsylvania, 
whose Iron Trade would be injuriously and quickly 
affected, there is in the United States great lethargy, 
and for the reasons I have given. I was, with Mr. 
Wells' assistance, figuring out roughly the extra cost 
to the Northern Pacific Railway alone over this one 



92 A Month in the United States 

line from the existence of this Protection policy. It 
would represent a good dividend to his stockholders ! 
Mr. Evarts in a speech he made later on (on Tues- 
day, in fact) said the Germans understood but could 
not explain the Americans and that the English ex- 
plained them, but did not understand them. I wish I 
had had to follow him, instead of speaking as I did 
before him, for I would certainly have tried to make 
a point about the high class patriotism which recon- 
ciles the American to paying high prices for what 
other countries could give them cheaper and better. 
After all. Providence meant to give to every country 
a specialty or specialties for its fellows, and what can- 
not be got best and cheapest in one country ought to 
be got elsewhere. Thus is a tie of interest woven 
all the world over. But this smacks rather of the 
"Dismal Science." Finally, on Sunday night we ar- 
rived at Ainsworth, which is on the northern bank of 
the Snake River — tired, dusty, and perspiring, for 
the day was oppressive, though the pine forests 
through which we passed did something here and 
there to temper the heat. 



Ainsworth, Monday, Sept. io, 1883. 
A GLORIOUS morning! Our train was drawn up 
■^^^ close to the shining bright river, and a barge 
made fast near us was a good apology for a bath- 
house. In we went helter-skelter to the number of 



A Month in the United States 93 

twenty or so and back again to our dining cars, and 
soon our toilets completed and our appetites in better 
tune for breakfast, which all the care of our host 
could not prevent being somewhat monotonous. The 
line of railway is incomplete at this point. The bridge 
across the River Snake has not got beyond the build- 
ing of the buttresses. In consequence we had to be 
ferried over, and, as only about two cars at a time 
could be taken, the transportation of the four trains 
occupied nearly the whole day. As we were in the 
second section, we started rather early, i.e., about two 
o'clock — not early enough, however, to prevent the 
falling night shutting out from us a perfect view of 
very fine scenery. 

From about Lake Pend d'Oreille we had ceased to 
be in the State of Idaho, and thence until we crossed 
the Snake we had been in Washington Territory (not 
yet admitted to the sisterhood of the States) ; but, 
having crossed the river, we were and continued to 
be, until we reached Portland, in the large and Pacific- 
bound State of Oregon. 

Our course for many miles pursued pretty closely 
the river; and again and again perfectly lovely 
reaches of the river appeared — perfect as to colour- 
ing, volume of water, adjacent hills, trees, and the 
rest. I will not stop to try to describe any one in par- 
ticular. 

Near a place called the Dalles there was a mag- 
nificent show of basaltic rock towering frowningly 



94 A Month hi the United States 

high over our heads. There was, I assume, no real 
danger; but looking up from our cars we saw huge, 
beetling masses of rock rising, it was computed, in 
places to a height exceeding lOO feet and certainly 
looking as if falling it must fall upon us of necessity 
and crush us. I was not sorry when we passed it; for 
there was some danger, though not of the kind to 
which I have adverted, namely, the danger of small 
portions of the rock falling and being tumbled on to 
the line. We went slowly for caution's sake. 

One beautiful scene we did see. It was where the 
river had widened out, and on either side was the 
wide-spreading sandy beach which tells what the 
Snake is in its winter fury. The warm, rich glow of 
the declining sun rested on everything — on the water, 
on the hills, on the sandy prairie, on the beach, but 
most of all, as it seemed, upon an encampment of the 
Flathead Indians which a bend in our road brought 
us suddenly upon. There they were as they have been 
since they were: no apparent tittle of change. The 
tepee tents, the squaws sitting about, the men lying 
lazily and dreamily impassive, the little ones playing, 
but playing noiselessly (our train was practically at 
a standstill) and the ponies grazing close by, except 
three or four, which, mounted by the chiefs, were 
wending their way by the riverside homeward — if 
the Indian has any home. To look at the picture was 
indeed beautiful, but I am sure if any artist could re- 
produce the richness of colouring it would look to the 



A Month in the United States 95 

eyes of the Old World, at least to European eyes, as 
exaggerated and untrue to Nature. 

Late in the morning of Tuesday we reached Port- 
land. 

Tuesday, Sept. ii, 1883. 
r T ERE again we had to cross the river (here called 
■^ -'- the Willamette), but this time only the passen- 
gers and baggage. We were billetted all over the 
town — the arrangements certainly being as perfect as 
such arrangements applying to such a number can 
possibly be made. We elected to be billetted on 
board the R. R. Thompson, a river steamship, the 
property of another of Mr. Villard's successful com- 
panies called the Oregon Railway and Steam Naviga- 
tion (?) Company, and here we were exceedingly 
comfortable during our short stay. 

I will not describe Portland. It is (since we left 
St. Paul and Minneapolis) the most considerable 
town on our route by far. It is picturesquely situated 
on the side of a hill originally closely pine-clad and 
sloping down to the banks of the Willamette, which 
is navigable a good many miles higher. The trade of 
the place is considerable, and for a young city they 
have started and carry on in it a good many manu- 
factures. 

A great reception the town gave — gay in banners 
with hospitable legends upon them, gay in triumphal 
arches, gay in flowers, and perhaps above all, gay in 



g6 A Month in the United States 

the bright looks and hoHday dresses of its people. A 
great procession took place from the landing stage 
to the large pavilion or public room of the town — a 
procession intended to represent the early history and 
the present state of the city headed by the early pio- 
neers or their descendants and concluding with exhibits 
of the now various trades and manufactures of its 
people. 

I arrived at the pavilion late and found that some 
of the English guests were expected to speak and that 
Horace Davey was asked to do so. He was anxious 
that I should take his place, and I, while by no means 
eager to deprive him of the honour, was unwilling to 
seem to decline a responsibility which my seniority as 
a silkgown seemed to put upon me. Eventually we 
both spoke. 

Mr. George, Senator for the State of Oregon, de- 
livered to Mr. Villard the congratulatory address. 
Mr. George was what the Americans call "the orator 
of the day." He is a young, good-looking man of 
colossal height and brown hair. He is not so gross 
and fat as Gambetta was, but he nevertheless re- 
minded me of the dead Frenchman. But not in his 
oratory. He read a carefully prepared essay, sensi- 
ble and clever enough, but he endeavoured by vio- 
lence of gesture and stress of voice to give it the effect 
of spoken speech, and failed therein. Mr. Villard in 
response, speaking apparently impromptu, spoke 
sensibly and well. 




CARL SCHURZ 



A Month in the United States 97 

He then called upon me. My friends said I did 
very well ; but they were friends. For my own part 
I felt when I had sat down that I had several things 
to say worth listening to, and I could not recollect 
anything I had uttered of which this could truly be 
said. Two men spoke later whom I was for different 
reasons glad to hear. One Mr. Carl Schurz because 
I had never heard him before, and the other Evarts, 
because, having heard him on this occasion, I was 
able to understand how he had acquired the high rep- 
utation he possessed. 

Carl Schurz was Minister of the Interior under a 
former government and was remarkable for his wise 
and conciliatory policy towards the Indians, in whose 
regard he had established schools for the education of 
their young. He said (on Tuesday) amongst many 
other wise and statesmanlike things that public men 
now saw that it was not only wiser and more gener- 
ous but cheaper to conciliate and to educate than to 
fight and trample upon the Indians. He is a German, 
but he speaks English more correctly than any for- 
eigner I have ever heard, and more correctly than 
any American speaker, according at least to our Eng- 
lish ideas. 

Evarts, of Tuesday, was not the Evarts who heav- 
ily delivered a heavy oration at Spike Point on last 
Saturday. That Evarts was prosy, indulging in long 
and complicated sentences difficult tx) parse, labouring 
to be impressive and I fear ending only in being dull : 



98 A Month in the United States 

this Evarts spoke as If he had no weight on his mind: 
his sentences were terse and pointed. He was at will 
humorous or satirical, and once or twice by im- 
promptu hints carried his audience entirely with him. 
I was delighted with his speech, and greatly pleased 
that I had not to leave America with my first impres- 
sions of his powers unremoved. 

Generally those I have heard here show very con- 
siderable speech-ability. The audiences, too, seem to 
enjoy the oratory. It is in voice and gesture more 
vigourous than in England is usual; and certainly 
there is a boldness (not to say exaggeration) of 
metaphor which we should think overstrained if 
not grotesque, but which here finds pleased ac- 
ceptance. 

In the evening was a grand concert followed by a 
reception and in full dress ! We donned our best, 
and as in duty bound paid our respects to Mr. Villard. 
We left early, for to-morrow (Wednesday) we de- 
tach ourselves from the main body of the party and 
go in advance at 5 A.M. via Kalama, Tacoma, Puget 
Sound, Seattle, and across the Straits of Juan de Fuca 
to Victoria in Vancouver Island — where we again 
touch Great British Dominion. 

The assembly was sufficiently brilliant and distin- 
guished. Of the music I cannot speak highly, but in 
such matters it is not fair to be critical in a new city of 
a new country. One is astonished not at what is not 
but at what is. 



A Month in the United States 99 

As Dr. Gnelst said to me on Tuesday, they still 
have a good deal to learn from the Old World, 
though they do not know it nor how much they al- 
ready owe it. 

Wednesday, Sept. 12, 1883. 
O TARTING at 5 A.M. by the good S. S. Dixie Thomp- 
*^ son we proceed to Kalama, sailing down the Wil- 
lamette and barely touching the Columbia, on the 
whole the noblest river I have yet seen here. I am 
told that further south the Mississippi and Missouri 
will open my eyes. 

We ought to have breakfasted on board, but two 
hungry hordes of passengers descended with such 
swiftness and determination upon the breakfast that 
there was nothing for us. At Kalama at 12 o'clock 
we made a modest meal and pursued our journey by 
train to Tacoma, the city of the most southerly part 
of Puget Sound. 

There is nothing in the country between Kalama 
and Tacoma to call for special mention. The coun- 
try is low-lying and in parts very swampy. The for- 
ests are dense and the timber of very large size, while 
the luxuriance of vegetation shows that the yearly 
rainfall must be very considerable. One resident 
said with a grin : "No man that ain't web-footed need 
come here." Again and again along the route we 
were struck with the devastation the forest fires have 
wrought. For miles here and there, the noblest trees 



lOO A Month in the United States 

literally in thousands upon thousands burnt to char- 
coal, and whole acres of underwood and its accom- 
panying vegetation burnt to the ground. I am begin- 
ning to realise (what must be accepted as an un- 
doubted fact) that the smoke from these fires for 
weeks and for months troubles the air and obscures 
the landscape. 

We had a special grudge against the fires to-day. 
Some sixty miles from Tacoma, but well in view from 
its neighbourhood, is the mighty perpetually snow-clad 
mountain Rainier, some 14,440 feet high. It is also 
sometimes called Mount Tacoma. 

I must break off here, suddenly and unexpectedly. 
We have got so far as Tacoma on our way back to 
Portland to-day (Saturday), intending to sail by the 
S. S. Columbia from Portland this evening for San 
Francisco. 

Here, however, we are overtaken by the Queen of 
the Pacific bound for San Francisco — a splendid ves- 
sel with lots of room; and, as we are kindly offered 
the option of going by her, we gladly accept it. I 
have a magnificent stateroom — so large that even on 
land it would hardly seem mean. It is luxuriously fur- 
nished. Furthermore this change saves a journey 
back to Portland of about 200 miles or so, and se- 
cures for us what I was anxious for, namely, the sail 
down and not merely across the Juan de Fuca Straits. 
I write on Saturday, Sept. 15, 1883, at Tacoma on 
board the S. S. Queen of the South ( ? Pacific) . 



A Month in the United States loi 

Wednesday, Sept. 12, 1883 {cont'd). 
T BROKE off as we approached Tacoma. Rainier, 
-■" eagerly loolced for by many in our train, declined 
to show himself. I was amused at the personal in- 
terest taken in him by the Tacomians and the eager- 
ness they showed that we should get a satisfactory 
view. Later, when I saw the mountain myself, I 
ceased to be surprised. 

We had a few hours to spare at Tacoma, and 
walked through the old and new towns — that is, 
through the town a few years and the town a few 
months old. The situation is very fine. Beginning 
at the base of a bold bluff originally clothed in pine, 
the towns rise up the slopes to the plateau above ; and 
still further back hills rise again forming a beautiful 
background. This is the beginning of Puget Sound, 
remarkable for its astounding water depths. It is a 
novel complaint, but it is literally the complaint here 
at Tacoma, that there is too much water — so much 
indeed as to interfere with anchorage facilities. One 
hundred yards from the shore there are 100 fathoms 
or more of depth ! 

From this point past Juan de Fuca Straits to 
George's Bay is here sometimes called the Mediter- 
ranean of the West. It is certainly very beautiful. 
Hence to Victoria we do not lose sight (save in a 
fog) of land, and wherever we sight it we see 
bluffs of greater or less height, but all densely 



102 A Month in the United States 

covered with noble pine forests from top to water's 
edge. 

The principal trade of Tacoma, as also of Seattle, 
Port Madison, Port Ludlow, Port Gamble, and Port 
Townsend, where our steamer touches, Is the lumber 
trade. In each of these places there is one or more 
saw-mills busily engaged in the trade. At Tacoma 
there Is also a coal trade. The Union Pacific Rail- 
way Company find It suits their purpose to buy a 
coal mine in this neighbourhood, make a railroad and 
expensive coal chute in connection with it, and keep 
a fleet of ships trading to and from San Francisco for 
the supply of their engines ! The mine is at Car- 
bonado. We sailed at night In the S. S. North Fa- 
cile, and so saw little of the Sound on our out voyage, 
until close to the Island of San Juan we sighted the 
noble range of mountains to the west called Olympian 
in Washington Territory. The sovereignty of this 
Island (San Juan) was, you will recollect, some years 
ago In dispute between England and America, but by 
the arbitrament of the Emperor of Germany was 
awarded to America. The question seems to have 
turned upon the point whether the Island was upon 
the American or upon the Vancouver Island side of 
the main channel. 

Speedily, about 12 o'clock Thursday morning, we 
sight Vancouver Island. 



A Month in the United States 103 

Victoria, Vancouver Island, Thursday, 

Sept. 13, 1883. 
'' I ^HE Island is pleasant but not of striking aspect, 
-*• as we near the narrow, very narrow, approach 
to the harbour of Victoria. The coast is rockbound, 
like a great part of the Irish and Scotch coasts; and 
inland it seems diversified by hill and valley without 
any considerable amount of agricultural land in any 
one district. It seems, too, generally well and heav- 
ily timbered, and has valuable and extensive coal 
mines. The climate during our short stay was de- 
licious. It v/as an English autumn fine day with a 
clear sky and a bright sun, pleasantly warm and yet 
with a dash of winter in the air. The inhabitants say 
it is fine weather eight months in the year. 

Victoria has certainly not the go-ahead look of the 
new American towns. Comparatively, things Avere 
staid and dull, though there were signs of solid busi- 
ness in the place. Sites for building certainly run 
higli. My barber, who charged me half a dollar, 
equal to 2s. English money, told me he paid $2 
per foot per month frontage for a frontage of 
twenty-five feet and that he then had to build his 
house, covenanting to leave it at the end of his term 
on the land. This would be a ground rent of £120 
a year. 

Accompanied by one of the Hudson Bay Com- 
pany's officials (Mr. Munro) we had a very pleasant 



I04 A Month in the United States 

drive from Victoria, past Esquimalt (pronounce 
Squimalt) towards Coldstream. 

Squimalt is a small, very small town, but the har- 
bour is greatly superior to Victoria. Indeed if there 
is ever any considerable town at this end of the island, 
it must, I think, be at Squimalt and not at Victoria. A 
good many people with whom I have talked agreed in 
this and think a mistake has been made by the Cana- 
dian Pacific Company, who propose Port Moody on 
the Georgian Bay as the terminus of their trans-con- 
tinental line. It is argued that they ought to have 
gone further north (where it is said the climate is at 
least as temperate) and crossing the narrows between 
the mainland and Vancouver's Island continue their 
railway system right down to Squimalt Bay. This 
would give to the Canadian Pacific Company that im- 
portant desideratum, a good port closer to the Pacific 
than any United States line in the Northwest can 
boast of. It is also further objected that Port 
Moody is not itself a good harbour and that the ap- 
proaches to it are difficult of navigation. Besides all 
this it is agreed it would have enabled the Canadian 
line to tap a fertile district of Canada further north. 

The formation of a railroad is now in. contempla- 
tion from Navarino in the north of the Island to a 
point somewhere close to Victoria. 

There is good coal in the north, and there is some 
gold, but nothing of any moment. 

The British ship Swiftsure (man-of-war) lay in 



A Month in the United States 105 

Squimalt, and I regret to say in the course of our 
drive we saw more drunken men, all from this ship, 
than I have so far seen in all my trip in the United 
States. 

Friday, Sept. 14, 1883. 
{En route back from Victoria to Tacoma.) 
T^/e slept on board our good ship The North 
* ' Pacific and 5.15 A.M. found us well under way. 
A couple of buckets of salt water soon thoroughly 
roused us to the signal beauty of the morning and the 
scene. By the way, the water in the Straits and in 
Puget Sound is very cold — so cold indeed that except 
in the very height of summer it is very little used for 
bathing and then only by venturous hot-blooded 
youth. The people call it "snow-water," and at first 
I found it difficult to understand that this was any- 
thing more than a quaint conceit or popular exaggera- 
tion. But to-day I saw there were (as there gener- 
ally are for all popular beliefs) solid grounds for this 
view. On the one side of the Sound to the west as 
we sail for Seattle and Tacoma is the great range 
known as the Olympian. It is the westerly and north- 
erly boundary of Washington Territory; and, al- 
though not to be compared with other mountains of 
greater height, it covers a large extent of country. 

On the east is another range of mountains, and 
close to the American and Canadian dividing line is 
Mount Baker, the noblest mountain I ever saw, ex- 



io6 A Month in the United States 

cept Rainier, otherwise called Tacoma. I did not see 
Mount Baker till Saturday evening, but I saw Rainier 
on the Friday evening. The day was much brighter, 
and the atmosphere much clearer as we approached 
Seattle on our return. I had my glasses and was sud- 
denly attracted by what seemed a bright cloud resting 
on a darker one close to the horizon line. It had, 
however, a fixity about it that puzzled me, when a 
voice at my elbow said: "Well, Sir, and what do you 
think of our little hill? I guess it's as big as some 
mountains in your country." This, then, was Rainier. 
As I look upon it, I confess to myself it Is the grand- 
est creation I ever saw. It Is 14,440 feet above ocean 
level. The lower part about two-thirds up is pine- 
clad (I had mistaken it for a darker coloured cloud) , 
but the remaining one-third Is cov^ered (as I look upon 
it, as it is perpetually) with snow. We were very 
lucky to see it, for it Is often months that Royal 
Rainier hides himself. 

As we approach Seattle (still on our way back 
to Tacoma) all things warn us that Seattle is 
en fete. 

The steamboats and the sailing boats, big and lit- 
tle, all sport their available bunting; and, as we come 
close to the landing wharf, we see triumphal arches 
prepared for the great Vlllard, who following us 
from Victoria, is presently to arrive. Here we w^re 
obliged to change boats; and, having left the party 
at Portland, we judged it best to keep to ourselves. 




Copyrigiit, ^W.^. by 11. C. White d.., N. Y. 

MT. RAINIER AND REFLECTION LAKE, 
RAINIER NATIONAL PARK 



A Month in the United States 107 

But It was fated that we should rejoin it at Tacoma, 
and under circumstances to us particularly agreeable. 

We went up the hill on which Seattle is built, and 
from that vantage ground witnessed the procession of 
vessels which went down the Strait to do honour to 
Villard. It was in every way a pleasant sight, pic- 
turesque to the eye and suggestive, too. I won't de- 
scribe Seattle beyond saying it Is bigger and more ad- 
vanced than Tacoma. 

Between Seattle, Tacoma, and Port Townsend (a 
smaller place than either, situate nearer the Fuca 
Straits and on the west of Puget Sound) rivalry now 
exists. Each place asserts itself as the only place 
where the N. P. Railway Company can find a proper 
and commodious outlet to the Pacific seas. 

By the time we sailed for Tacoma, the day was de- 
clining, and the Illumination of Seattle was at its best, 
as we rounded the point close by, which shut out our 
view. It was a lovely night, and I must say I never 
had so perfect a view of any illumination, and I never 
saw any which to my eye looked half as well. Built 
on the side of a hill, the town rose terrace above ter- 
race, and from the Queen of the Pacific (the steam- 
ship which carried the excursion party) to the public- 
school — a fine building which crowns the city — all 
was ablaze. 

At Tacoma, which we reached about 1 1 o'clock 
(passed on our way by the speedier Queen of the 
South) ^ we experienced what appeared to be a stroke 



io8 A Month in the United States 

of ill luck. The only hotel would not have us : it was 
full. If it had not been full, we should both have 
tumbled into bed, and next morning journeyed on 
above 150 miles to Portland in order to sail thence on 
Saturday night by the S. S. Columbia for San Fran- 
cisco. As it was, I walked down to the wharf along- 
side which lay the Queen. I met my good friend 
Mr. Garrison, whose unobtrusive kindness I shall not 
readily forget. He informed me that not only could 
we get accommodation on board, but that, if it suited 
us equally well, we could sail in the Queen direct for 
San Francisco instead of making the weary journey 
(retracing one's steps is always weary) back to Port- 
land. We were delighted, and all difficulty as to 
Darling (whom we left in Portland) and our bag- 
gage there being promptly overcome by telegram, we 
gratefully turned in to our new quarters — and what 
quarters ! The Queen is a very fine and a very fast 
ship ; and it is no exaggeration to say that expense and 
ingenuity have not been spared in making her the 
most luxurious boat I ever saw. My apartment is 
splendid. I should be content to go in the Queen 
round even by Cape Horn and so home to England. 
I found General Grant had left the party at Port- 
land, returning to New York with Mr. Billings, 
Mr. Evarts and Mr. Grant, his son. I think I have 
already said that General Grant is the one man who 
is generally popular in the United States. It was a 
pleasant sight to see the old veterans who had served 



A Month in the United States 109 

under him, but who have since "turned their swords 
into ploughshares," clustering round the car (which 
was next ours) to have a word and a grasp of the 
hand from him. There was no ceremony about the 
matter. Any one who wanted to talk with him 
walked into the car and was always well received. 
There was something refreshing in all this absence of 
those class distinctions which with us exist. Here was 
a man who twice filled the highest executive post un- 
der the Constitution, accessible to all from high to 
low. I could not help thinking of those royal jour- 
neys so carefully ordered that the vulgar gaze of the 
people could not even penetrate to the stations along 
the line. 

Saturday, Sept. 15, 1883. 
{En route Tacoma in Puget Sound to San Francisco.) 
'T^His was a most delightful day, but wholly un- 
^ eventful. The great body of our party left by 
7 o'clock train for Portland, intending to return to 
New York by the route already traversed, but mak- 
ing a stay of four days at Yellowstone Park in order 
to explore the glories of that wonderful district. 

As the train left the depot, the stern whistle of 
the Queen sounded, and soon we were speeding at 
15 knots (or nearly) the hour down the Sound for 
Port TownseYid, which was our clearance port. Noth- 
ing could possibly be more agreeable than the day. 
The clouds had nearly all lifted; the atmosphere was 



no A Month in the United States 

brilliant; the sun warm and bright, and we were thus 
enabled to see under the most favourable conditions 
the beauties of the Mediterranean of the northwest. 
Take it all in all, the finest view I have yet seen 
was that which lay around us after we had cleared 
Port Townsend and were standing in a westerly di- 
rection down the Juan de Fuca Straits for the great 
Pacific Ocean. The weather I have already de- 
scribed. To the north lay the island of San Juan, 
and then a little to the northwest Vancouver Island 
— pleasant objects for the eye to rest upon, but not 
of commanding beauty. To the south (the southern 
boundary of the Straits as Vancouver Island is the 
northern) the fine Olympian range, in never-melting 
snow atop and at bottom fringed by a dense fringe of 
pine and cedar forest. Here and there great clouds 
of freshly risen smoke showed us that the forest fires 
were at work, but the wind was from the northwest 
and pretty strong, and these did not obscure our view. 
The waters of the Sound are now quickly shut out 
from us, for Washington Territory and the State of 
Oregon appear to join hands ; and here right astern of 
us to the east is the great picture of the scene, the 
noble Mount Baker nearly 13,000 feet high and 
seeming all the bigger from his superiority over his 
smaller brethren who are not far off. As we go down 
the strait farther and farther to the west, and farther 
and farther from Mount Baker, I find it impossible 
to withdraw my eyes from it: it seems to exert a kind 



A Month in the United States 1 1 1 

of fascination over me, and certainly, as we recede, 
it seems to tower more and more into the sky until 
the intervening pine-clad bluffs have disappeared; 
and it stands noble and alone lifting its mighty head 
high up from the horizon line ! At last we lose it in 
the gradual coming shadows of night. I saw it better 
and for a longer time than Rainier, but men who know 
both well say Rainier is the grander mountain, as it is 
certainly the higher by between i,ooo and 2,000 feet. 
On we go, down the Sound, past the lighthouses 
which north and south — on English and American 
territory respectively— mark the entrance from the 
Straits into the great Pacific. The beauty of the night 
tempts many of us to remain on deck far into the 
night; and, giving the mainland a wide berth, we rap- 
idly run south, round Cape Flattery, past Destruction 
Island, past Gray's Harbour (called after the Cap- 
tain Gray who first discovered the mouths of the 
Columbia River) past Cape Disappointment and the 
Columbia mouths. At last I go to my very roomy 
and luxurious quarters, pleasantly tired but not ex- 
hausted, and at peace with all the world. 



Sunday, Sept. 16, 1883. 

( 2nd day. En route from Tacoma to San Francisco.) 

A GAIN a delightful but uneventful day! The Pa- 

•^^^ cific is still true to its name, but it is a mistake to 

suppose that there is not frequently along the coast 



112 A Month in the United States 

very heavy weather. Our captain (Alexander) tells 
me this is altogether about the best trip he has ever 
had along the coast. Going north he says they had 
nothing but fog and smoke with lumpy seas — this 
time almost a smooth sea, and there has not been a 
moment we have lost sight of land. 

It is a remarkable fact that from Port Townsend 
in Puget Sound on the north, to the port San Tego 
in the south, there is not a single harbour which a 
stranger in distress can safely enter except San Fran- 
cisco. This is a distance of some 1,200 miles in ex- 
tent ! 

Speaking of our captain reminds me that the three 
first officers on board this fine vessel, I.e., the captain 
and the first mate and second mate, are all remarkably 
young men. The captain does not look to be more 
than forty years, if so much, while the first and sec- 
ond mates are under thirty. Promotion in the mer- 
chant service here seems to be quicker than with us. 

The line of the Pacific coast, as we now view it, is 
disappointing. There are comparatively no big coast 
bluffs or mountains. The coast is generally rock- 
bound, with a low line of hills lying a little Inland, 
and these are, as a rule, covered with forests. Be- 
yond there is a fertile valley and then still farther in- 
land (but not visible to us) is a further range of 
grander mountains called in Oregon State the Cas- 
cade Range, and, where it reappears farther south in 
the State of California, called the Sierra Nevada 



A Month in the United States 113 

Range. The really fertile lands lie principally to the 
west of these and in the valleys. 

Mr. Tully, a member of Congress, returned by a 
district of the State of California, whose acquaintance 
I have here had the pleasure of making, tells me that 
good weather for harvesting is such a certainty that 
the farmers leave their threshed grain in the open 
fields until it is convenient to cart it away to the de- 
pots. I wish Ireland could count upon such a harvest- 
time as this ! 

I find Mr. Tully is a sound and well-informed Free 
Trader. We had quite a lively discussion this morn- 
ing to give us an appetite for breakfast. Ex-Gov- 
ernor Perkins of the State of California and Mr. 
Davis, ex-Congressman, took the Protection side and 
Mr. Tully (firing an effective shot now and then) 
left to me the main brunt of the fighting. As he af- 
terwards phrased it, "I guess I thought I could leave 
you to do the chewing up." 

I am not going to go into this question here, but I 
must say that while Fve discussed it with many able 
and generally well-informed men, from Mr. Evarts 
to ex-Governor Perkins, not one of them has really 
argued or even attempted to argue the question. 
They seem to think they have said all that was neces- 
sary and proved the whole case by exclaiming, "Sir, 
under the Protective system you condemn we've built 
up the prosperous cities and communities you've wit- 
nessed." It is no use to answer that this is a very 



114 ^ Month in the United States 

bad example of the post hoc propter hoc argument, 
and that I might with just as much force reply, "Yes, 
in spite of Protection you certainly have some pros- 
perity." Neither does it matter to these logicians to 
point out that the inventors of their Tariff system, the 
Hamiltons and the Clays, expressly advocated it as 
only a temporary expedient to help an infant com- 
merce to get over the ills and weaknesses of infancy. 
One thing, however, struck me very forcibly. The 
dislike of England is deep down in the breast of 
Americans — at least of Americans of the North. 
Senators and Congressmen alike have dropped re- 
marks strongly indicative of this. They still feel 
sorely the privateer proceedings in which some Eng- 
lish firms took a prominent part in their war crisis, 
and they add with some bitterness, "But we made 
England pay for it." One thing is clear that any ad- 
vocacy by England of Free Trade doctrines will re- 
tard, not advance the question. 

Another thing strikes me strongly. In the Ameri- 
can press throughout the entire extent of country I 
have travelled I have noticed that the so-called Eng- 
lish news is almost entirely confined to news relating 
to Irish questions — the National movement, Irish 
land, and so forth. All this has its strong signifi- 
cance. 

We are still discussing Free Trade and American 
interests in relation thereto (it has broken out afresh) 
as the sun goes down behind a curtain of bright gold. 



A Month in the United States 115 

giving promise that the delightful weather we have 
had win be with us to the end. To-morrow (Mon- 
day) night we hope with continued good luck to 
reach the Golden Gates which lead to San Francisco. 



Monday, Sept. 17, 1883. 

(Still (3d day) en route from Tacoma to San 
Francisco.) 
/~\nce more a delightful but uneventful dayl Un- 
^-^ less indeed the fact that in the bright sunlight 
since morning mighty whales have been disporting 
themselves ahead of and all round us in great num- 
bers can be called an event. I am sure Bertie would 
consider it so. Well, Bertie, I will tell you all I know 
about them. "There's a whale, good for forty bar- 
rels at least," cries the second officer, and, looking 
where he points, I see a disturbance of the otherwise 
unruffled surface of the water — nothing more. Pres- 
ently a little way off up goes a great waterspout thus : 
. . . and the officer shouts out "there's another." 
This time I see clearly enough a black object, bigger 
than any live object I ever before saw In the sea, 
floating for a moment or two lazily on the surface and 
then he disappears. ■ 

These appearances, Bertie, you will understand, 
occurred again and again through the day; but I saw 
no more than I saw at my first introduction to a whale. 
In fact, these big creatures, Bertie, do not display 



Ii6 A Month in the United States 

their immensity on the surface; they only come up 
from time to time, displaying a black fin on the top of 
their back and disappearing. 

As we got farther south, the outlines of the shore 
were bolder, the bluffs higher and occasionally very 
fine — reminding me greatly of Ireland — say the coast 
of Antrim, but nothing, I think, like so fine as parts 
of the Antrim coast. 

As we were finishing dinner (I enclose bill of fare, 
which was a real Bill, for Frank's delectation) our 
courteous Captain, rising from the table, said: "Gen- 
tlemen, I hope you will come on deck a few minutes, 
for we shall soon be passing through the 'Golden 
Gate.' " 

Presently up we went. We were approaching the 
entrance to this, the finest harbour I ever saw. On 
each side were lighthouses and also strong fortifica- 
tions for the defence of the Port, and a little farther 
to the south was a great rock known as Seal Rock, on 
which literally thousands of seals hourly and daily 
disport themselves. On, on we go, and now, fairly 
through the entrance, we see the straggling lights of 
this the greatest city of the South. But the Golden Gate 
— where is it? Why so called? I look eagerly for- 
ward, but all I see In the dull light of the rapidly clos- 
ing day is a murky smoky atmosphere such as one 
sees in the busy towns of Lancashire. Why the 
Golden Gate? In my perplexity I turn back to the 
west which we are leaving, and I need no further ex- 



A Month in the United States 117 

planation. The revelation is made to me. The sun 
has gone down but left the traces of his bright golden 
glory behind him, and there between the two head- 
lands which form the pillars (themselves gilt by the 
brightness all around them) we see only one blaze of 
rich golden light from side to side. It is well called 
the Golden Gate. A turn in our course presently 
shuts out this brightness from our view, and we dis- 
cern in the dull light a number of vessels anchored in 
what seems and is, in fact, an immense anchorage 
ground. We tread our way cautiously amongst them, 
and, finally landed at Broadway Wharf, we are taken 
possession of by the employees of the Palace Hotel, 
San Francisco, and within its hospitable portals wc 
speedily find ourselves. I will by-and-by tell you 
what San Francisco is like. 



Tuesday, Sept. 18, 1883. 
"|\ /Ty impressions of yesterday evening of the 
-'-' -^ beauty of this place were quite confirmed this 
morning. We arrived at the Palace Hotel and found 
it all ablaze and a band playing in the atrium (Arthur 
will explain) or court-yard, which was crowded. 

Our rooms had been engaged and were the best in 
the house — on the sixth story ! They were really very 
fine — large, lofty, with bathroom and dressing-room 
to each — in fact, very complete suites of rooms. In 
the morning we found we had a distant view of the 



1 1 8 A Month in the United States 

bay and across to Goat Island over the intervening 
city. 

'Frisco is certainly beautifully situated and beauti- 
fully laid out. Sheltered from the west by the south- 
ern arm of the bay, it rests upon a succession of hills 
— many of them very steep — which seem to run al- 
most in regular parallel lines. 

Though much smaller in population than Chicago, 
it is a much more taking city. There is also great 
appearance of business activity. Altogether, after 
New York it is the finest city I have seen here. 

The system of tramcars is the most perfect I have 
seen. Even the steepest hills are charged by steam- 
trams worked on the endless-chain principle, and you 
can travel from one end of the city to the other for 
five cents. This is the only cheap thing, this tram 
travelling, which I have yet come across in the 
United States. 

I went early to St. Mary's Hospital, situated on the 
top of Rincon Hill. I was being shown into a parlour 
when Kate appeared — looking on the whole very 
well and strong, and exactly as she looked when 
in Great Britain four years ago — not looking a day 
older. 

The Sisters of Mercy were not the first religious 
Sisterhood in 'Frisco, but they have since their arrival, 
about 1854, made marked progress. Outside the 
convent and outside the Catholic community the noble 
work they have done is gratefully acknowledged. 



A Month in the United States 119 

On RIncon Hill they have a large Hospital, a 
work-school, and a Home for aged women. 

They have altogether five branches in 'Frisco, and 
in Sacramento, and have in charge several schools. 
They receive no aid from the State, and no compensa- 
tion for the important teaching services which they 
render. Neither do any others of the Catholic Schools. 
In this important particular Catholic schools are much 
better off in England. 

Kate inquired very anxiously about everybody at 
home, and I gave her the fullest particulars I could. 
She complains that, although they have been prom- 
ised to her, she has not received the photos of Mar- 
garet, Lily, May, and Bertie. This should be seen 
to. I am sure also she would like photos of little 
Willie and Alice. 

I also saw Mary Martin in her nun's dress. (She 
used to be a companion of my mother.) She is a 
bright, cheery little nun. 

Joseph Jennings is here, carrying on the business of 
an Insurance Agent under the firm of Jennings & 
Stillman. He has very good offices in a good business 
Street and seems to be doing a good business. Kate 
speaks in the highest terms of him and of his family. 
The latter live in Chicago. I thought Joseph Jen- 
nings looking old and thin, but I believe I look nearly 
as old myself, although I am a good many years his 
junior. He speaks with great regard of Kate. 

It appears that, when following his profession of 



120 A Month hi the United States 

engineer a good many years ago, his left eye became 
affected and continues to be so. But otherwise his 
sight is good. I also saw James Gartlan, whom I 
could not recollect ever having seen in Ireland. I 
easily recognised him for his likeness to his brother 
George, B.L., in Dublin. He seems very well and in 
good spirits. He is working very hard for the Law, 
which here covers a great deal of ground — including 
the parts of Barrister and of Attorney, and also a 
wide field of business-work besides. 

Tell Letitia Jennings in Newry and Alexander 
Gartlan about their respective relatives. 



Wednesday, Sept. 19, 1883. 
"VT^E drove out this morning at 6.30 to Cliff 
* * House, situated about eight miles from 'Frisco 
and opposite the famous Seal Rocks (to which I have 
before alluded) for breakfast. We went through the 
Park, which is of great extent and beautifully laid out, 
and here I travelled on the first good road which I've 
seen in the United States. The roads in town and 
country are, generally speaking, simply execrable. 

The Rocks are certainly remarkable. They are lit- 
erally covered with seals, and the water about them 
seems literally swimming with them. They seem to 
be on the best terms with the wild birds, with whom 
they share possession in a quite friendly way. 

The hotel has a name for breakfast, and accord- 



A Month in the United States 121 

Ingly we ordered what proved a very expensive one, 
and a very bad one and included in our menu one of 
the American delicacies, viz, : terrapin. Terrapin Is 
a kind of small land turtle. Well, this is the third 
great American delicacy that has deceived me. The 
other two are sweet corn and soft-shell crab. But I 
wish to say that I do not think I ate any one of tjiem 
under favourable conditions. The fact is you require 
to be introduced to these delicacies under extremely 
favourable auspices, or you may possibly do them a 
life-long injustice ! I should like to avoid this. 

A great friend of Kate's, a Mr. Oliver, called upon 
me, accompanied by his son-in-law, Mr. Tobin, who 
is a banker and practising lawyer In this place. Mr. 
Oliver and Mr. Tobin are Irishmen, and the former 
Is one of the many men here who are reputed mill- 
ionaires. 

We had with both a good deal of conversation 
about Ireland and Irishmen at home and abroad. 
They are both, I should say, strong Parnellites in the 
main. Mr. Tobin commands a volunteer local regi- 
ment and he has under him men of '48 and 1866, and 
even one man who took part in the Tallaght episode 
on the borders of Dublin and WIcklow, only a few 
years ago. The Irishmen here are strongly national, 
as Indeed they generally are throughout the United 
States. 

As to the position of Irishmen In 'Frisco, It Is good, 
very good. A native American told me he considered 



122 A Month in the United States 

their rise remarkable, bearing in mind the fact that 
they come to this country the worst provided to battle 
successfully in their new life in the three important 
points of education, skilled training, and money. 

Since 1863 there has been no serious collapse in 
trade; but in that year the town was in an awful state 
for want of employment for the poor. Kate told me 
that in that time they fed at the convent daily some 
300 persons. Here the Chinese question presents the 
gravest difficulty. The Chinese number in this city 
about 60,000. There is more complexity In this matter 
than I at first thought. It Is objected that these 
Chinese, unlike the German, Irish, and other like 
classes of emigrants, do not come here intending to 
form any part personally of the body politic. They 
do not coalesce with the other classes. They stand 
apart; they are neither given nor give in marriage, 
and their savings, instead of going to Increase the na- 
tional wealth, are steadily hoarded to be spent by them 
(after a few years' sojourn here) in their native land. 
It is objected that it is unfair to bring the labour of 
such a class as this into competition with and to the 
prejudice of the classes who are part of the country 
and who are willing, if necessary, to fight for it. 

It seems on all hands admitted that, although 
Chinese honesty does not stand high, Chinese Indus- 
try, Intelligence, and Ingenuity do. The Chinese have 
a theatre here. 

[I wish here to note (out of place) that Kate ob- 



A Month in the United States 123 

jects to the American Free School System on one 
ground, which Cardinal Manning takes against the 
English School Board System. It is this: that it pau- 
perises education, that it enables persons who are 
fully able to pay or at least to contribute to the edu- 
cation of their children to come in forma pauperis to 
the Free Schools.] 

We visited a remarkable yearly exhibition of the 
manufactures of the State of California at the Me- 
chanics' Institute. It certainly gives a wide idea of 
the development of their local manufactures and of 
the wealth of the locality. Their furniture was par- 
ticularly rich and luxurious in design. They have got 
in this State on the coast a red wood (unknown else- 
where)- which is soft and easily worked and which 
takes a polish as fine as mahogany. This wood, I 
see, enters largely into their furniture-making. 

We left in the evening via the Ferry and Oakland 
for Madera, about 180 miles from 'Frisco en route 
for the far-famed Yosemite. 

Our line followed the inland portion of this great 
Bay for many miles, and passing through a great 
wheat-bearing country, namely the valley of the San 
Roque, we finally arrived at Madera at 11.45, i^'^" 
tending to pass the night in the Pullman cars. 

It was remarkable the enormous number of sacks 
of grain which we found piled up in the open air un- 
protected, on the ground or in open wagons en route 
for shipment at San Francisco. The faith of the 



124 A Month in the United States 

farmers in the dryness of the weather is great, and 
appears to be well founded. It is now just a month 
since I landed at New York and I affirm that during 
the whole of that term I have not noticed altogether 
one hour's rain ! When in the Northwest, it was said 
there was some rain one night, but I do not vouch for 
the fact. This dryness has its inconvenience, as my 
next day's chronicle will attest, but to the farmer who 
wants his grain saved these inconveniences count for 
little. 

Thursday, Sept. 20, 1883. 
T F ON the evening of Thursday, September 20th, 
-*- I had wanted to punish my direst enemy with 
seventy, I would have enjoined his riding by the 
American stage from Madera to Clark (a distance 
of about seventy miles) in the tail seat on a hot dayl 
We started at 6 o'clock sharp and were journeying in 
pain and misery until close upon 8 o'clock in the even- 
ing, altogether fourteen hours ! Whence the trouble, 
you Vv'ill ask? Answer, everywhere. The carriage 
had no springs, and the driver drove as if it had. The 
road was full of boulder stones and ruts, and the 
driver drove his team as if he were tooling round 
Hyde Park. Bump, bump, every two or three min- 
utes; you are shot up in the air a foot or so, be the 
same more or less, and come down on the hard seat 
in a manner to seriously affect, temporarily at least, 
the. base of the spine. Nor was this all. The dust 



A Month in the United States 125 

lay feet deep in the ground (they have had no rain 
since April) and as the six horses galloped along, we 
at the end were enveloped in clouds of dust so thick 
at times that we could not see the horses in front. 
Anything like the suffocating feeling I never before 
experienced, for, be it remembered, the thermometer 
was at 98° in the shade ! At last we got to the end of 
the weariest day's journey I ever made. I made a 
rush for the bathroom, and having secured primary 
possession I left after a few minutes, intimate with 
soap, water, and scrubbers, so that I became again 
recognisable by my friends. The sight of all the 
passengers was bad, but Martin and I were the worst. 
I am sure I had enough dust down my back to fur- 
nish a moderate-sized dust-bin ! 

I can now look back with more equanimity on the 
proceedings of the morning. 'For the early part of 
the day we passed through a flat, uninteresting coun- 
try which, however, is said to be great at wheat-bear- 
ing, but was to-day bare and parched. We passed 
several beds of rivers where obviously in winter and 
spring the water brawls loudly, and found nothing but 
dry sand and boulders. Indeed until we reached a 
village called Fresno Flats, I did not see a single 
running stream, although we passed many dry 
beds. 

One curious and interesting thing we noticed. 
Close by our trail or road ran for miles a kind of 
trough supported by timber at heights from the 



126 A Month in the United States 

ground. Now and then we lost sight of it for hours, 
but again it reappeared. I thought it must be some 
irrigation apparatus (and probably it helped irriga- 
tion also), but that is not its main purpose. It is a 
timber chute, some fifty miles long! The timber is 
cut in the mountain fifty miles up country and sent 
down baulk by baulk by means of water, which in 
spring is plentiful enough. This will give you a good 
idea of the vastness of the country, and how little its 
people reckon about distances. Fancy such a thing in 
Ireland stretching from Dublin to Newry ! 

By-and-by we gain the forest land, and bit by bit 
make our way up the approaches to the Sierra Nevada 
Range, in which lies the wondrous Yosemite Valley. 
The forest-road track is startling in the extreme. It 
is not wider in any place than about twenty feet, and 
it winds in and out and in and out of the mountain 
gorges and along very precipitous hills, margined 
more frequently than not by a steep fall many feet 
deep. I am not nervous, but I confess I did not at all 
like our road. But our driver, not coachman (I com- 
mitted a great offence by so calling him), rattled his 
six horses along round the sharp turns with great skill 
and also great unconcern. Occasionally looking back 
the track we made seemed uncomfortably close to the 
edge. Later still our difficulty was greater, for we 
were overtaken by the night, and yet on we went as if 
it were all plain sailing, and finally arrived at Clark's 
on the slope of a hill about 3,000 feet above sea level, 



A Month in the United States 127 

but still about twenty-five difilcult miles from the 
Yosemite. 

Clark's was a fairly comfortable hostelry, and, like 
all the hotels that we have visited west, was scrup- 
ulously clean. 

A simple meal, and I was soon between the sheets 
and speedily forgetful of an unpleasant day's drive. 



Friday, Sept. 21, 1883. 
T NOTE here lest I should forget and because I know 
^ Mrs. Macaulay will be interested in the fact that 
Joshua O'Neill, formerly in Mr. Macaulay's em- 
ployment at Randalstown, is now bookkeeper or 
clerk at the Hibernian Bank, San Francisco. I have 
not yet seen him, but I intend to try to do so on my 
return. 

This day our drive was continued through moun- 
tainous forests just like the latter part of yesterday's 
drive. The timber was magnificent. It was quite 
common to see trees bordering the road five and six 
and even eight feet in diameter and 250 feet and up- 
wards in height and straight as a lance. Indeed the 
timber was quite as fine in the forest approaches as in 
the valley itself. 

We started at 7 o'clock and were due at Cook's in 
the valley at 2 o'clock. At about 12.30 we were la- 
bouriously surmounting the last mountain spur which 
lies between us and the valley, and about i o'clock a 



128 A Month in the United States 

glorious view certainly burst upon us. We were at 
Inspiration Point! From a height of still several 
hundred feet above the valley, which is itself about 
4,000 feet above the sea, we are looking down upon 
the greatest aggregate of noble mountains I ever be- 
fore saw at one moment. 

Close to us to the left is II Capitan, a rock of sev- 
eral thousand feet, which rises sheer up from the val- 
ley. To our right is also the Bridal Veil Fall (900 
feet unbroken fall), in which the volume of water is 
just now small, but which even now is suggestive of 
its name from the lace-like appearance the water pre- 
sents as the wind catches and seems to spread it out 
in its long descent. Also to our right is Sentinel 
Dome, rising abruptly from the valley and from 
which we afterwards got our best view, or at all 
events our second best. Further on to the left was 
Glacier Point, a rock rising perpendicularly from the 
valley with an unbroken continuous face exceeding 
3,000 feet! And still further away were, faintly ap- 
pearing in the distance, the peaks and points of the 
Lyall and Obelisk groups of mountains — the former 
some 13,000 feet in height. On our left was Eagle's 
Point and Cloud's Rest — the latter some 10,000 feet 
high. All the mountains bounding the valley are 
granite, and at first sight present the appearance of 
being snow-clad; but, in fact, patches and small 
patches only of snow now rest upon them. The val- 
ley is rich in land and in timber, and the hardy pine 



A Month in the United Slates 129 

clings to what seems the clayless rocks and is to be 
found rearing its head high up the sides, and even on 
the very tops of the highest mountains. 

I have just re-read what I have written, and I see 
I have failed to emphasise sufficiently the characteris- 
tic look of the valley, which is that the rock moun- 
tains, like walls, rise perpendicularly all round it; and 
indeed the very faces of the rocks are smooth and 
polished. In fact, the idea which was forced upon my 
mind was that the bottom has fallen out here and left 
the walls standing. I find that my unlettered view is 
accepted by some savant called Whitney, who says the 
existing state could only have been produced by vol- 
canic action involving enormous subsidence. Others 
refer to the glacier theory as explaining it. It ap- 
pears this valley is, after all, known to the white man 
only some thirty years. About that time the Indians 
were making very successful cattle raids, and it could 
not be discovered whither the cattle were driven. At 
last an expedition, headed by a Captain Boling, suc- 
ceeded in discovering the vallev and a large party of 
Indians with great numbers of cattle. After consid- 
erable fighting these Indians were driven out of the 
valley, and escaped by what is called to this day the 
Indians' Caiion, which looked at to-day with our eyes 
seems impenetrable and impassable. 

Opinions differed in our party of ten as to the 
grandeur of the scene, but on the whole opinion 
seemed to be that, while this was the more peculiar 



J 3^ ^ Month in the United States 

and remarkable view, some of the Swiss views are 
grander. We will, I hope. Madam, next year see 
some of these grand Swiss views together. 

Cook's Hotel in the valley is an aggregation of 
small wooden huts. Nearly all are one story high; 
but it was cleanly and comfortable, and the food ex- 
cellent. 

We were to be up betimes in the morning to see 
the sun rise in Mirror Lake, and so we were off early 
to bed. What this mystery means, the sun rising in 
the Lake, will hereafter appear. 



Saturday, Sept. 22, 1883. 
'' I ^His has been in every way a delightful and inter- 
•*- esting day. My opinion, and the opinion of all 
my fellow-travellers, of the striking grandeur as well 
as of the unique character of this valley, has been 
greatly raised. 

Early Martin and I rode on excellent ponies to 
Mirror Lake. The distance was only about three 
miles, but the part of the valley we traversed very in- 
teresting. We followed the line of the Merced 
River, which is formed high up in the mountains to 
the east of the valley and is fed by the snow-water. 
Just now the effects of river and of waterfall are at 
their worst, owing to the long drought, but I have no 
difl^culty in picturing what a beautiful as well as 
grand valley this must be in spring when the winter's 




MIRROR LAKE, VOSKMITE VALLICV 



A Month in the United States 131 

snow is yielding to the summer's sun and the earth 
wears its green mantle. 

As a lake, Mirror Lake is a failure and a serious 
failure. When we first saw it this morning, our feel- 
ing was one of complete disappointment. Great sand- 
banks showed us plainly enougii that it is of consid- 
erable extent when at its best, but to-day it is shrunk 
into small dimensions and is indeed little better than 
a stagnant pool. 

But lo! the wonders it reflects! It is situated in a 
bend of the valley where the walls are about one and 
one-half miles apart. The walls are on one side the 
North Dome, and on the other Mount Watkin (so 
called after the photographer) and these rise abruptly 
from the level, while their polished smooth faces and 
white appearance readily lend themselves to clear re- 
flection. 

We approach the banks of the contracted water, 
and standing upon a vantage ground of rock we look 
upon the murky bosom of the lake. It was wonder- 
ful. Clearly as possible we see the inverted moun- 
tains reflected. Trees, rocks, shrubs ever, deep, deep 
down in the waters of the Lake. I really felt that I 
could gaze for hours, occasionally altering my point 
of view, on this scene, so peculiar and interesting was 
it. But the most striking incident was yet to happen. 
Deep down in the heart of the valley sunrise is late; 
and when it appears in Mirror Lake, it appears close 
to the top of one of the Lyall Range, which is duly 



132 A Month in the United States 

mirrored in the lake. As sunrise approaches, we fix 
our eyes in the lake at the point where already we see 
the reflected glow of the coming sun. Presently in 
the lake deep down we see the glitter as of a great 
brilliant. Larger and larger it becomes until its 
brightness dazzles the eye, and you are obliged to 
look elsewhere — for now the sun has fully risen in the 
Mirror Lake. 

We canter back to breakfast, well satisfied with 
our morning, and with appetites well calculated to do 
justice to Mr. Cook's good things. 

But even more interesting doings remained to us 
this day. We are still in the valley. We want to get 
out of it. We want to get up to the heights and par- 
ticularly to the height known as Glacier Point. How 
is this to be done ? The glacier rocks rise abruptly be- 
hind us, perpendicular as a wall, with here and there 
pine trees and underwood at intervals clinging to their 
sides. Yet we are told it is up this rock we are to ride 
and ride by the Macaulay Trail ! 

The name interested me, and the man, when we 
finally arrived at his Hotel, situated on tKe top, at 
the very point, and learned his history. 

He was born some few miles from Randalstown. 
His name is James Macaulay. He claims no relation- 
ship with Mr. P. Macaulay, but I must say he has got 
exactly the square, rather determined Macaulay face. 
He worked as a lad at Randalstown Mill and recol- 
lects all about the Macaulay family and all about 



A Mofith in the United States 133 

Rev. Dr. Curoe, Joshua O'Neill, Dr. McDonnell and 
the rest. He afterwards went to work in Glasgow, 
afterwards on board a Cunard steamer, and finally 
came to this country to work as a miner. He under- 
took, entirely at his own risk, the making of this track 
when he did not possess in all the world $500, and it 
ended by costing him about $5,000, equal to £1,000 
sterling ! He obtained from the State the right to 
collect toll for ten years from those using the trail, 
but lately the Government have bought up the residue 
of his lease and the Macaulay Trail is now open to 
all the world. To complete his personal history — he 
married a widow, a German a good deal older than 
himself, and he has two infant sons, twins, a couple 
of years old. He has also a step-son aged about nine 
years, and the finest, brightest, and pluckiest little 
fellow I have seen for many a day. I wish Bertie 
could see the places that youngster rode a big mule 
up and down without winking. I am sure Bertie 
would be just as plucky if he was brought up amongst 
these mountains — scrambling beside precipices since 
his cradle, and indeed his very cradle rocked on the 
verge of a precipice. Macaulay's Hotel is most pic- 
turesquely situated at the top of the trail, and on the 
Glacier Point, and it proved to be as cleanly and com- 
fortable as it is picturesque. 

The trail (or horse and foot track) is a very re- 
markable piece of work, not only creditable to the 
maker's resolution, but also very remarkable for the 



134 A Month in the United States 

considerable ingenuity it displays. Some idea will al- 
ready have been gathered of the difficulty of the 
work from my description of the place; but that dif- 
ficulty will be perhaps better understood from the 
fact that to rise 3,000 feet vertically about 4I miles 
have to be traversed — equal to 23,760 feet — and still 
the track, is very steep. The ride up on our ponies 
was not absolutely free from danger; but, so long as 
the traveller does not lose nerve, the danger is slight. 
The ponies have the very sensible but slightly dis- 
quieting habit of walking to the very edge at the turns 
in order to make the inclined plane as easy as possible ; 
and as these verges frequently introduce you to an 
abrupt fall of a very ugly appearance, the ride is not 
wholly free from excitement. But it was glorious! 
Every fresh turn, almost, introduced us to fresh views 
of this wonderful place; and I affirm that, until I 
rode this trail and found myself looking down and 
around me from Glacier Point, I had no adequate 
idea of the beauty and grandeur of the Yosemite dis- 
trict. The views were superb, and indeed compre- 
hended all the views to be seen closer in the valley — 
the Mirror Lake, the Nevada and Verrall Falls, the 
Cloud's Rest, and so on. 

For the benefit of all future visitors to Yosemite I 
wish to record my experience that they ought to go 
direct to Macaulay's Hotel, Glacier Point, see the 
sunset from Sentinel Dome, stay the night there, and 
thence proceed to the valley — if so inclined — after- 



A Month in the United States 135 

wards. The walk down the trail is not at all labouri- 
ous, while the walk up is a very serious undertaking 
except for the young and active. At present railway 
and hotel interests are combined to send the visitors 
direct into the valley and to keep them there as long 
as possible. I affirm that this is not the way to see the 
Yosemite to the best advantage. 

I hav^e said Macaulay's Hotel was picturesquely 
situated: it is — startlingly so. My excellent bedroom 
on the first floor was approached by a ladder and bal- 
cony on the valley side of the house. I declare I am 
not exaggerating when I say that upon opening my 
door to come out it looked as if, should I miss my 
foot, I should be hurled into the valley three thou- 
sand feet below. 

I afterwards went to the verge of the cliff or point 
where very stout iron bars had been placed to remove 
any possibility of danger. It was appalling. If I 
dropped my stick, it would fall plumb with the rock 
to its base. The cattle in the plain below were the 
merest specks. Fancy a perpendicular descent about 
ten times (I should say) the height of Nelson's 
Pillar! 

Later on, escorted by young Jules (his mother is a 
native of Strasburg) , we rode up to the tip-top of Sen- 
tinel Dome to see the sunset. The sunset effects, as 
a matter of colour, were not grand, but the view all 
round the horizon was strikingly beautiful and well 
repaid our efforts. The clear grey light of evening 



136 A Month hi the United States 

seemed to bring out Into clearer outline the varied 
peaks and crags and fantastic shapes of the moun- 
tains all round the horizon, and showed, away to the 
east and north, the vague forms of mountain upon 
mountain until they became undistinguishable from 
the clouds. We were looking upon the great Sierra 
Nevada Range. 

Something attempted and done had earned for us 
a good night's rest;^ and we got it. I should desire 
no better accommodation in every way than James 
Macaulay and his wife afforded us. 



Sunday, Sept. 23, 1883. 
"^ I "HE stage was to start at 9 o'clock to take on Mar- 
-*- tin and myself and any passengers who should 
ride up the Macaulay Track from the valley. 

We were up and about at 5 o'clock, drinking in this 
wonderful air and enjoying from the hotel balcony 
one of the finest views the neighbourhood affords. I 
tolci the seven passengers who came panting from be- 
low in time to catch the stage what they had missed, 
joined with them in insisting that the stage should 
wait until they had, at the least, the opportunity of 
seeing the view from Glacier Point, and finally made 

'Something attempted, something done, 
Has earned a night's repose. 

—Longfellow's Village Blacksmith. 



A Month in the United States 137 

them ardent converts to my view that the proper way 
to enter the valley and to enjoy it is z'ia Macaulay's 
Hotel and Glacier Point, 

The first stage of our journey towards Clark's was 
new to us. It covered a distance of about fourteen 
miles to a place called Chincopin. It was through a 
beautiful natural country, charmingly wooded and 
undulating, but as dry as a parched pea. 

Arrived at Clark's at 2.30. There still remained 
something more to do — namely, to see Mariposa 
Grove, where the big trees are to be seen. A trunk of 
a tree from this spot is, I think, on view in the Crys- 
tal Palace. I had resolved not to see this sight unless 
I could go on horseback. I was, and I am, heartily 
sick of American staging. I succeeded in getting a 
very excellent black mare and had a most enjoyable 
ride of about eighteen miles there and back. The 
trees are awfully big, and there are a great many of 
them scattered over the forest; but that said, all is 
said. There was nothing particularly interesting 
about them. A space through one of them was cut 
sufficiently wide for the stage and six horses to drive; 
and in many of them there were holes big enough to 
shelter me and my horse from rain, had rain 
happily fallen. Still these are not the boss trees of the 
world. There are, I believe, some at Teneriffe even 
larger. 

I want to say a word about the merits of my bonny 
black mare. With us, as you know, walking, trotting. 



138 A Month in the United States 

and cantering are the paces most cultivated in our 
roadsters and hacks. Well, my black was first class 
at walking and cantering, but as bad a trotter as any 
one could desire. She had, however, tivo paces ut- 
terly unknown amongst our horses, called here 
"one footing" and "three footing," which, al- 
though not elegant to look at, are easy to the rider 
and help over the ground at from five to six miles the 
hour. 

Altogether I had through the pine forests a charm- 
ing ride and one comparatively free from dust — that 
pest of American country life in the advanced sum- 
mer and early autumn. 



Monday, Sept. 24, 1883. 
T T Ze started from Clark's and retraced our steps in 
* ^ the stage via Fish Camp, Fresno Flats, and 
Goldmine Gulch to Mace's Hotel and Madera. 
There was nothing noticeable en route. We had se- 
cured the front seats by the driver, and therefore 
suffered comparatively little from the dust, but 
greatly from the intense heat — quite 98° in the shade. 
I was not sorry when we reached Mace's Hotel, 
Madera, and had so reached the end of our staging, 
with which I am not in love. Mr. Mace, by the way, 
weighs 350 pounds, which means 25 stone English. 



A Month in the United States 139 

Tuesday, Sept. 25, 1883. 
^T /"e were astir this morning at 4 A.M., as our 
^ ^ train left Madera at 5 o'clock, arriving in San 
Francisco at 12.30 p.m. 

Looking back on all the incidents of this Yosemite 
Expedition, covering some six days, I ask myself has 
it indeed been a pleasure or a pain? And the answer 
is by no means clear. 

On the whole, looking back, I am glad I have seen 
the Yosemite, but, could I have foreseen the physical 
labour and the disagreeableness involved, I should 
certainly not have gone. I advise my friends not to 
go until a railway has reduced the staging distance, 
which is now about 100 miles, to at most a fifth of 
that distance. Again I advise them not to go in the 
summer or autumn. I am sure it is an enchanting and 
marvellous spot when the streams and rivers and falls 
are full and when, free from dust, vegetation of all 
kinds, on mountain and in dale. In tree and in flower, 
Is freshest and brightest. I am sure also that to the 
geologist and the botanist It must afford a world of 
interest; and several times during this trip I have 
found myself regretting that I did not know at least 
a little something of both botany and geology. Learn 
from this, O ye young ! while there Is yet time, to cul- 
tivate extended tastes. They will be a pleasure to 
you always, but especially a pleasure and an added 
interest when, later in life, you come to travel. 



140 A Month in the United States 

So ends the story of our Yosemite Expedition. 

I am not sorry to find myself, as I write, within 
reach of the Bath of the Turk and the street tramcar 
— free from jolting — of the white man. 



Wednesday, Sept. 26, 1883. 
O AN Francisco en route for Salt Lake City. I am 
*^ writing in difficulties and in face of a great dis- 
aster! I have lost my notebook! And now, on 
Thursday, October 4th, I am sitting down to try to 
reproduce from memory the incidents of eight days. 
My usage is to note from day to day anything notable 
that occurs and then write my despatch when I get 
to steady quarters at my hotel. Now and then I try 
the train, but it is too shaky, at least for me. I am 
writing at the Southern Hotel, St. Louis — having left 
S. 'Frisco on the date a-top. 

Even now at St. Louis we are little more than half- 
way across this great continent on our way to the 
Eastern Seas — as they are here called. I went this 
morning to the Hibernian Bank, where I heard 
Joshua O'Neill was a principal bookkeeper — I mean 
Joshua O'Neill, formerly Mr. Macaulay's book- 
keeper at the Randalstown Mills. The poor fellow 
was very glad to see me and seemed greatly gratified 
at my calling. I think I should have known him, 
though he is greatly changed and aged. He is now 
almost alone in the world : he has only one surviving 



A Month in the United States 141 

daughter. He enquired in the kindest way for Mr, 
IMacaulay, Mrs. Macaulay, and their children. He 
was greatly grieved to hear of Mr. Macaulay's death. 
I told him how well Charles and Colman had got on 
— especially Colman — and he seemed delighted. He 
was full of gratitude to Mother Mary Baptist Rus- 
sell, to whom he says he owes not only his present 
position, but the first start he got in San Francisco in 
other employment. He does not on the whole think 
very much of the tone of American life. He says 
there is very little faith or religious feeling in the 
country except amongst the Catholics, and that very 
many of these are careless and lukewarm. So far as 
I can gather, there is no place in the United States 
in which on the whole the Catholic body, or, in other 
words, the Irish Catholic body, stand so well as in 
San Francisco in point of religious organization, edu- 
cation, mercantile, social, and political position. 

I spent all yesterday afternoon and the greater part 
of to-day with Kate. At St. Mary's Hospital the 
children of their schools — bright, healthy, intelligent- 
looking children they were — went through certain 
calisthenic and musical exercises very pleasant to see 
and to hear. As to the latter, I was rather surprised 
when the pianist who accompanied the singers struck 
up the English national anthem of Dr. John Ball. I 
was surprised. "God save the Queen" here in a Re- 
publican country ! However, my surprise soon 
ceased, for the accompanying song was an ode to 



142 A Month in the United States 

America entitled "America," and which as a national 
air ranks close after "The Star Spangled Banner." 

I also went through the hospital wards. They are 
bright, cheery, and wonderfully neat and clean. 
They have wards for the poor and also for those who 
can pay for higher class accommodation. Their pa- 
tients are frequently Protestants — indeed, Kate says 
she knows the Protestant Bishop very well from the 
fact of his frequently coming to visit his co-religionists 
and subjects in the wards. 

Later we drove (that is, Kate, Sister Mary Aquin 
Martin, James Gartlan and myself) in the convent 
carriage-and-pair (!) to the Penitents' Home and the 
Reformatory, at Potrero Avenue, on the outskirts of 
the city. Our driver was a rum old fellow — a Dun- 
dalk man, whose name I forget, but who has pur- 
chased a home under the care of the Sisters for life ! 
He occasionally, when it suits his dignity, officiates as 
coachman — I beg his pardon, as driver. 

The establishment at Potrero was most interesting, 
and it is worth noting that as regards the inmates of 
the Reformatory School these are committed to the 
care of the good Sisters by the State authorities, who 
pay for each child or at least contribute to the support 
of each child. 

I think I have already mentioned poor old Miss 
Kate Russell, one of the three^ sisters formerly of 
Elm Hall, Dublin, who lived many years in Cincin^ 
^In reality there were six sisters. 



A Month in the United States 143 

natl. She is the last survivor. She is a ladylike, 
handsome old person who is ending her days with 
Kate in cheerfulness and peace. 

She was delighted to see me and seemed to feel the 
leave-talcing a good deal. She thought me very lilce 
Kate, but my face seemed to awalcen old memories,^ 
some sweet and some bitter, no doubt, that probably 
long had slept. Poor, dear old soul ! God has any- 
way given her a quiet evening for her life. 

One interesting spot, and a sad one in some sort, 
too, is the Sisters' Grave Ground at Potrero. Here 
on the bright hillside under the shadow of the maple 
tree and the cottonwood rest nearly one-half of that 
devoted band whom Kate led now nearly 30 years 
ago from the Old World to the New, carrying the 
Cross with them. 

San Francisco — California indeed — has a very old 
Catholic history. It was here years ago, when Spain 
was still a great power and her people an adventurous 
race, that the great Christian symbol was planted by 
Juan Cobrillo in 1542 — nearly half a century before 
Drake sailed into San Francisco. It was here, too, 
that in 1770 was founded the great Franciscan Mis- 
sion under Father Francis Junipero Serra, which has 
left its mark even until now. Indeed the name of the 
great city of the South is that of the Patron Saint of 
the Missionaries, and was given to It by Father Juan 
Crespi and Francisco Gomez in 1770 with the assent 
of Gaspar de Portola, Governor for Spain of Lower 



144 ^ Month in the United States 

California. I have read some quaint appreciative 
lines of Bret Harte on this point. 

The traces of the old Spanish occupation amongst 
the people are few. Many of the Spanish names of 
places survive, and Mission Bay, in the greater San 
Franciscan Bay, still marks the spot where the pioneer 
missionaries spent their lives in the service of the 
Great Master. One of the old mission churches sur- 
vives here — adobe-built. This kind of building needs 
explanation : It consists of bricks which are not fire- 
dried and which are joined or built together by a 
mud-cement made of the same clay of which they are 
made, until the whole becomes a homogeneous con- 
solidated mass. Farther south, namely at Monterey, 
along the coast, are the ruins of a very fine church 
built in connection with the San Carlos or Carmel 
Mission of that place and which dates back to the 
epoch of the Father Serra before mentioned. 

We dined at San Francisco with a Mr. Oliver, a 
great friend of Mother Mary Baptist, a warm- 
hearted and genuine Irishman ?nd Catholic. He is 
one of the many millionaires of this place. We met 
several representative Irishmen and Catholics. 
Amongst them Mr. Tobin, Sr., and Mr. (or Col- 
onel) Tobin, Jr., father and son, who are respect- 
able lawyers here. There were many shades of politi- 
cal opinion expressed and represented, from pure 
Whiggism to ultra-Parriellism or perhaps more prop- 
erly Healyism. We agreed in two things, however: 



A Month in the United States 145 

the first that at bottom there is little love for England 
amongst the American people, and secondly that 
amongst the majority of the Irish of all classes and 
positions the feeling is one of implacable, irreconcil- 
able hatred of England. It is a mistake, too, to sup- 
pose that this feeling is confined to the lower order 
or to what may be described as the rowdy element. 
Far from it; it extends to men of means, of education 
and position, who are utterly opposed to politicians 
of the dynamite and murder calibre. Colonel Tobin 
said that he had no doubt that in San Francisco alone 
he could raise at least 12,000 men who, without 
thought of pay or of consequences to themselves or 
their business, would fight in any war by the side of 
any people against England. I doubt if there be 
much exaggeration in this statement. It is to be recol- 
lected at the same time that what is pointed at is no 
Irish rising — for on all hands it is admitted that that 
is out of the question. It is the old story — the old cry 
— "England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity." 

The position of the Irish in San Francisco is very 
strong. Probably it is stronger in San Francisco and 
in Chicago than elsewhere In the United States. 
Their influence is considerable and legitimate. They 
show generally on this continent the wretched love 
for Government place that distinguishes them at 
home — in common be It said with their Scotch 
brethren. Their great competitors for place here are 
the Germans, and the race between these nationalities 



146 A Month in the United States 

for place is close and exciting. The native Americans 
are not in it with them. 

Of the position of the Irish in the State of New 
York I shall have to speak very differently by and by. 

I left poor Kate very sad, poor soul, but greatly 
pleased at having had the Old Land brought closer to 
her by my presence. God bless her and all the Sister- 
hood, who promised to pray very steadily for me and 
for mine. By the way, as Kate was the Rev. Mother, 
I was promptly dubbed "Uncle" — but without the 
"Reverend." 

We left San Francisco at about 4 o'clock p.m., via 
Oakland, and intending to follow the most pic- 
turesque route eastward that this continent affords, 
that is, over the Wassatch, Sierra Nevada, and Rocky 
ranges of mountains by Reno, Truckee, Ogden, Salt 
Lake City, Newton, Topeka, Kansas, and Kansas City 
to St. Louis and thence via Philadelphia to New 
York. I have already described in my earlier Letters 
the ascent of the Rockies many hundreds of miles 
farther north along the line of the Northern Pacific 
Railway; and I will now confine myself to what is or 
seems to me peculiar to this route. 

We found ourselves, when morning broke upon us 
in our sleepers, not far from a small city rejoicing in 
the name of Winnemuca and found that our engines 
— for there were two — were bravely fighting their 
way up the ascent which marks the great Divide of 
the Pacific Slopes. 



A Month in the United States 147 

Thursday, Sept. 27, 1883. 
pROM morning to night we were speeding through 
a country with every variety of scenery. In 
places bleak, sterile, and unlovely, with that glazed 
look upon the surface which indicates the presence of 
alkaline matter and marks the unsuitability of the 
land for agricultural purposes. In other places a 
great combination of mountain and lake, with a new 
revelation of wonderfully beautiful colouring in rock 
and tree and general landscape. I say a neiv revela- 
tion, for now the autumn tints for the first time are 
noticeable by us. The change was marked and sud- 
den. On the Pacific Slopes there was little evidence 
that winter is rapidly overtaking us; but we had 
barely passed the summit of Wassatch Mountains till 
the winter hues were general and unmistakable. 
Some of the colours were unlike anything with us. 
For instance, the cottonwood tree and a species of 
maple, which were common, had their leaves new- 
coloured a bright yellow, which in combination with 
all manner of tints from deep crimson to green and 
against a background of red sandstone and limestone 
and gypsum was striking and effective. When 
morning came, we were far in the State of Utah — 
the kingdom of the Latter Day or Mormon Saints. 
At Ogden we found ourselves skirting that curious 
physical phenomenon not yet even fully explained, a 
great lake of salt water — briny as the Atlantic — 



148 A Month in the United States 

many miles from the sea. It is so dense that it is said 
that no one sinks in it; and to the same cause is at- 
tributed the fact — for fact it is — that, while the wind 
is sufficient to lash with fury adjoining waters, the 
surface of the Salt Lake is calm and unruffled. 
Finally we arrived at Salt Lake at 10 a.m. 



Salt Lake City, Friday, Sept. 28, 1883. 
" I ^HE city Is certainly picturesquely situated and 
-*- laid out. The streets are very wide, are gener- 
ally planted with trees, and have In many cases rivu- 
lets running at their sides; and in the case of the prin- 
cipal streets lead towards hills which rise from the 
plain at some distance from the city. The buildings, 
too, are frequently imposing and always neat, freshly 
painted and attractive. 

The population is about 25,000, and of this it is 
not claimed by the Gentiles that they number more 
than 5,000. In justice it Is to be said that Salt Lake 
is a peaceable city, and, generally speaking, free from 
crime. I believe the pblice amount to less than ten. 
All the city officers from the Mayor (Jennings) down 
are held without any exception, I believe, by the Mor- 
mons; while as to the States (meaning the United 
States) offices they are given to the Gentiles. Be- 
tween the government of the United States and the 
Mormons there is something like war. Congress de- 
clines to accept Utah into the confederation of the 



A Month in the United States 149 

States, principally If not wholly because of the polyg- 
amlstic practices amongst the Mormons. They know 
that, if made a State, the Governorship and all the 
higher offices would be held by Mormons. At pres- 
ent it remains a "Territory" merely, which leaves the 
governing State appointments in the hands of the 
President of the United States. The Congress has, 
by whzt are known as the Edmunds Laws, striven In 
earnest to put down polygamy, but hitherto with lit- 
tle effect. The law is evaded and practically set at 
naught. One conviction, and one only, has been ob- 
tained, and that in the case of a Mr. Reynolds, who 
admitted polygamy in order to test the validity, con- 
stitutionally, of the Edmunds Law. It Is a sore point 
with the Mormons that, notwithstanding promises to 
the contrary. President Hayes left the convicted man 
to work out his full period of sentence. The Mor- 
mons further complain that the Edmunds Law Is con- 
demnable because ex post facto — that is, that by its 
retrospective action It makes that penal and criminal 
which, when done, was not either. In other words, 
they say that at best it should be directed against 
polygamistic marriages In the future. A Mr. Can- 
non, who had served in Congress for several years as 
Senator — a leading Mormon — was unseated and de- 
clared disqualified by a majority of votes In Congress 
on the ground of polygamy. I met this Mr. Cannon 
later at the house of the present President and 
Prophet of the Mormon body, Mr. Taylor. Mr. 



150 A Month in the United States 

Cannon, like Mr. Taylor, is a plain, very common- 
place kind of person : I could discern no sign of the 
prophet or apostle in either. Mr. Cannon is about 
fifty-five years of age and Mr. Taylor is about sev- 
enty-three. Mr. Taylor is a venerable-looking, grey- 
haired man, very prosaic, free from all affectation, 
puts on no prophetic or apostolic airs, and is thor- 
oughly commonplace. I had hoped for the oppor- 
tunity of some close conversation with these gentle- 
men, but the advent of a lady visitor forbade this, and 
I shortly after took my leave. 

The faith of the Mormons negatively and posi- 
tively may be summed up thus ; 

1. They believe in the Bible, generally; but have 

2. Special belief in the Revelations to their 
prophet and founder, Joseph Smith, and to Brigham 
Young and any subsequent prophet. These (so far) 
are contained in the Mormon books. 

3. Belief in Baptism by immersion, as washing 
away sin, but disbelief in original sin. 

4. Belief in vicarious Baptism for the dead, and 
(I believe) also for the living. 

5. Belief in the efficiency of laying on of hands. 
Their affairs spiritual are managed by their Prophet 
and Apostles — who look after (and that pretty 
sharply) the temporal matters pertaining to their 
church. 

They exact, or more correctly they expect, each 
Mormon to pay into the treasury a tithe or tenth of 



A Month in the United States 151 

the earnings. Thus a man earning 75 dollars a 
month pays monthly 7^ dollars, and so on. It is not 
a payment in respect of net profits merely. Many of 
the weak-kneed brethren have succumbed under this 
test of their faith. Thus the proprietors of our hotel 
were Brothers Walker, who gave up Mormonism 
only (It is said) because the ten per cent, bore too 
heavily upon them. There is no doubt that this tith- 
ing brings enormous sums into the treasury and gives 
to its controllers enormous power. Indeed there is 
a firm belief among Gentiles and ex-Mormons that 
the prophets and apostles grow fat upon the tithing. 
Of the truth of this belief I cannot speak. 

The tithing-house is one of the features of the 
place. Here are not only offices for money payments, 
but granaries, etc., for the reception of tithing in kind 
and weighing machines for testing its accuracy. The 
other striking Mormon buildings are the Temple, 
built of granite, and imposing but not religious In 
character. It is Incomplete. The Tabernacle where 
the body habitually worship Is a curious building, in 
shape like an inverted boat. It can seat some 4,000 
people, and is said to be remarkable for its fine 
acoustic properties. I met the Chief Justice (Hun- 
ter) , the great legal functionary of the Territory, and 
had with him an Interesting conversation. He had 
just been delivering a forcible address to the Grand 
Jury on the necessity of vindicating the law In the 
matter of the Edmunds legislation ; but In private he 



152 A Month in the United States 

did not speak hopefully of what could be done. A 
shrewd observer afterwards remarked it wouldn't be 
law which would break up Mormonism. He looked 
to the spread of intelligence; to the rebellion which 
he thinks is sure to come against the tithing, and to 
the influence of Gentile tastes and fashions and the 
artistic efforts of a few French modistes, to do more 
to break up the superstition than the law will do. I 
had a long conversation with two Mormon men, but 
not, to my regret, with any Mormon women. I 
should have greatly liked to converse in confidence 
with the first or second of a series of (say) six or 
eight wives. It is a mistake, however, to suppose 
that polygamy is universal or anything like universal 
amongst them. It is really only the well-to-do who 
will be allowed to practise it, and not always, it is 
said, even these. Gentiles tell me that the women ap- 
pear to be the strongest advocates for this strange 
condition, and their zeal, if it be real, is explained 
thus: In the scheme of creation woman was a mere 
afterthought. Of herself she is nothing, and, unless 
she is the real wife or is sealed to man, her chances 
of eternal glory are small. I need not point out that 
this creed has a markedly masculine character, but 
these poor women or many of them believe in it. The 
women amongst the Mormons are said to be heavily 
worked, and one explanation of polygamy here was 
thus given: "Wages run very high, and if a man can 
get a wife to do his cooking comfortably and ask 



A Month in the United States 153 

no wage, and another to do his washing on the 
same terms, and another to milk the cows and 
make the butter, why, there's great economy in 
polygamy." 

The two men I alluded to above are a Scotchman 
and an Englishman. The Scotchman is John Aird of 
Kilmarnock, now nearly seventy years of age. I be- 
lieve he is thoroughly sincere, but I think he has got a 
bee in his bonnet. He left his Scotch wife in Scotland 
(she wouldn't come with him), but he contributes to 
her support, and he has married what he calls his 
first true wife in Mormondom, and he told us his 
Mormon wife is now urging him to marry a third 
with a view to his greater glory in the Kingdom to 
come. He affirms that he was instantly cured of 
sciatica by the laying on of hands of one of the apos- 
tles, and that on the occasion when he was baptised by 
immersion a special miracle was wrought for a sign 
to him. He asserted that, when he went to the Scotch 
burn for baptism, the wind was raging and the water, 
but that when he got into the water a calm followed, 
whereas upon his emerging the storm began again. 
I mildly suggested that with his head under water 
he could not probably notice the state of wind and 
water; but this prosaic explanation he would not have. 
His special "fad" or mission is to get baptised for 
the benefit of his friends. He says he has about 200 
in his book for whom, before he dies, he intends to 
get baptised; and included in the number is his re- 



154 ^ Month in the United States 

calcitrant Scotch wife, who, though she takes his 
money, he says never writes to him to acknowledge it. 

The Englishman was W. T. Ayland of Birming- 
ham. I think he was sincere, but again I thought he 
had a slate off. He was a workingman who had mar- 
ried a second wife — the two wives, as he expressed it, 
"living together like sisters." He did admit on cross- 
examination that his first wife objected to his second 
marriage; but afterwards "she came into it" and they 
had since got on very well together. "What recon- 
ciled your wife to this second marriage?" I asked, 
"Oh! religion," he promptly answered; "she knew it 
would be for the greater glory of my second wife and 
for my own." I do not think the man was aware he 
was uttering stupid, beastly cant. 

I asked Chief Justice Hunter, who struck me as be- 
ing a remarkably intelligent, clear-headed man, as to 
the nationalities of which Mormonism is made up. 
He said principally Scandinavian, Welsh, and Eng- 
lish. "Are there any Irish?" I asked. "Yes, a few," 
he replied; and he referred me to James Dwyer, a 
bookseller. I went there. He says he was born in 
this country in Rochester, but he looked and spoke 
very like an Irishman born in his native country. He 
was a regular humbug, in my opinion, and I could not 
avoid the suspicion that in his case, regard for the 
profits, at least as much as for the prophets, actuated 
him; but I may be doing the man an injustice. He is 
the Mormon bookseller of the place. 



A Month in the United States 155 

We went to a very nice theatre and saw performed 
by the Union Square Company of New York a very 
good piece called "Paris Flats." 



Satueday, Sept. 29, 1883. 
T T 7 E left on this morning at 1 0.30 en route through 
* ^ the Rockies for Denver, the capital of Colo- 
rado. I have already told you the incidents of the 
ascent of the Rockies when going from east to west 
by the Northern Pacific and I will not therefore dwell 
on this in detail. 

The line of railway is probably the most daring 
ever laid out by an enterprising engineer. Its gradi- 
ents are in places very steep, and its curves the sharp- 
est by far I ever saw. I am not exaggerating when 
I say that, standing on the steps of the train platform, 
which commands a view forward and backward, I 
have frequently lost the engine round one curve and 
the tail of the train round another. Add to this the 
fact that the train runs on the narrow gauge, and you 
will understand that there were some "jumpy" ele- 
ments about our journey. But all the same a glori- 
ously picturesque line it is. Marshall's Pass, the sum- 
mit point the train attains in the Rockies, is 10,700 
feet above the level of the sea; and if you will just 
look at the height of the highest mountain in Ireland, 
you will have some Idea of what these figures mean. 
The view from it was very fine. The day was clear. 



156 A Month in the United States 

and below us lay to the east what seemed an Inter- 
minable succession of mountains, varied here and 
there by lake and plain and forest. Early as it is in 
the autumn, the railway men were busy at work in re- 
pairing and building up the snow-sheds, for the snow- 
fall is here at times so enormous as to wholly block 
the line if unprotected. For miles we passed through 
wooden tunnels (with spaces here and there) built 
up with great strength. The snowfall had helped 
to blight whole miles of young forest trees 
which had bent and given way under their snowy 
burthen. 

As we were descending from the summit towards 
the east, a startling incident occurred. A great 
boulder came tumbling down the hillside, just clear 
of the engine and tender, and, blocking the wheels 
of one of the passenger cars, upset it (full of passen- 
gers) in an instant. But the engineer had already 
seen the danger, and, before the succeeding cars could 
run into the overthrown one, the brakes had acted and 
we were brought to a standstill almost instantane- 
ously. The men and women and little ones had to 
be lifted through the window; for, you must under- 
stand, the doors of the American railway cars are all 
at the ends and none of them at the sides. Several 
men and women were more or less badly hurt and 
shaken, but no life was lost and no limb broken. Two 
young ladies of the theatrical party (who were jour- 
neying home to New York) exerted themselves ad- 



A Month in the United States 157 

mirably in looking after the invalids: no Sisters of 
Mercy could have done better. 

In about two hours' time we were again careering 
downhill and uphill and round sharp curves, just as if 
nothing had happened. The most striking sight on 
our journey we had yet to see — by far the most strik- 
ing — namely the Grand Caiion, 

It was twilight when we first entered it; and if this 
prevented our seeing it with the same close accuracy, 
it undoubtedly left more to the imagination. It was 
startling. For several miles the train, following the 
line of the Arkansas River, winds in and out and 
round and about a long series of jutting, perpendic- 
ular rocks such as I have never before seen to any- 
thing like the same extent. There were no slopes with 
vegetation; no patches of green; all was rock and 
nothing but rock rising wall-like on each side of the 
river, side by side with which and only a few feet 
above which our train ran. The effect was indeed 
startling. Looking up as it were from this cleft in 
the rocks, we saw the stars above our heads — looking 
back, we did not see the opening through which we had 
come, for we had just sharply rounded a curve — look- 
ing forward, there was no opening for us out apparent. 
We seemed completely hemmed in, and yet we Vv^ere 
rattling along at the rate of about 25 miles an hour. 
The physical conformation of the place is remark- 
able. It looked literally as if the water had through 
the course of ages worn out this way for itself in the 



158 A Month in the United States 

rocks, deepening it more and more the more it ran. 
I do not know the height of the rocks, but in places 
certainly several hundred feet in height; while the 
Caiion or Gorge was not in width apparently more 
than fifty to seventy feet. 



Sunday, Sept. 30, 1883. 
O o we went on, on, through the Sunday — no church 
'^ for us to-day — past Montrose, Gunnison, and 
Pueblo, past Colorado Springs and on towards 
Denver. 

From Pueblo towards Denver was out of our route 
to the east. I made the detour in order to try and 
see WiHiam Dillon, formerly at the Irish Bar and 
brother of John Dillon. You will recollect his din- 
ing with us in Harley St. He is in partnership with 
a man named Ratcliffe in a cattle ranch at Sedalia or 
rather near Sedalia, a little town twenty-five miles 
south and short of Denver. I thought George 
Fottrell and Mrs. Fottrell would like to hear about 
him, and I was anxious to see him on my own account. 
Martin and Darling stopped at Colorado Springs, 
but I went on to Sedalia. The train ought to have 
been at Sedalia at 7 o'clock; it was not there, in fact, 
till I o'clock on Monday morning — i A.M. I mean. 
Cold and perished I arrived at Sedalia and found not 
only William Dillon and his partner, Mr. Ratcliffe, 



A Alonth in the United States 159 

awaiting me, but also Mr. Thomas Fottrell, formerly 
in the Hibernian Bank, Monaghan — the brother of 
Mrs. Power. 

Monday, October i, 1883. 
^~\ NE A.M. to-day, as I have already said, found me 
^-^ at Sedalia ; a few minutes sufficed to find us all, 
i.e., Dillon, Ratcliffe, and myself (for Fottrell was 
starting next morning by early train) in Mr. Rat- 
cliffe's two-horse buggy, and rattling away under the 
light of the stars to our destination nine miles oft — 
Spring's Ranch. 

Here a cheery sight awaited us. Mrs. Ratcliffe had 
a bright log-fire burning and an appetising supper 
ready, after discussing which I promptly tumbled 
Into bed, for I had only one day here (this very Mon- 
day) and I wanted to make the most of it. 

Once for all let me say I was the guest of Mrs. Rat- 
cliffe, and if her treatment of me was anything like 
what one may ordinarily expect in ranch life — then 
ranch life is not difficult to put up with. 

Dillon looked remarkably well and stronger, 
broader-shouldered and in every way bigger than I 
expected to find him. He came out three years ago 
for his health, and had the good luck to be taken as 
boarder by Mr. Ratcliffe. Last June twelve-month 
(that is, June, 1882) he may fairly be said to have 
entered upon ranch life on his own account. Mr. R. 



i6o A Month in the United States 

has his own ranch, but they (D. and he) have taken 
a ranch which they work in partnership. So far the 
experiment seems to have answered wonderfully well, 
not only as to health, but also as to profits — consider- 
ing that their ranching is not on a very large scale. 
Dillon has his own house and establishment on the 
partnership ranch, quite good enough for bachelor 
quarters, but not quite up to the mark of Mrs. Rat- 
cliffe's comfortable, not to say, luxurious quarters. 
Dillon's household retinue consists of one woman 
(from Sligo, I think) named Doyle, who is cook and 
housekeeper and maid of all work. Doyle is a trusty 
soul, and I believe devoted to her master, but his prin- 
cipal amusement consists in abusing the ways and 
manners of the New and asserting the marked superi- 
ority of the ways and manners of the "Ould Coun- 
thry." I must here break off or I'll have no fair 
chance of being read. I will give a sketch of this 
beautiful, bracing place in my next. 



Sedalia, Monday, Oct. i, 1883 {continued) . 
A LTHOUGH it was quite 3 o'clock when we got to 
•^^^ bed, we were up again before 8 o'clock and in 
the saddle before 9.30 o'clock. I was bound to re- 
join Martin on Tuesday, and was therefore resolved 
upon making the most of my day. 

By the way, the saddles in the northern and also in 
the western parts of this continent (I cannot yet speak 



A Month in the United States i6i 

of the east) are very different from ours, and the seat 
of the rider very different also. The saddles here 
offer much greater support to the rider, and in this re- 
spect they more closely resemble the cavalry and 
police saddles at home; but they are much more elab- 
orate than these. In front, instead of our pommel, 
is a perpendicular arm not without its advantages as 
a support but principally useful as a means of attach- 
ing conveniently the lasso or any less interesting rope, 
any small baggage, etc., while behind, the saddle rises 
abruptly, fixing the seat, so to speak, securely. In 
fact, the saddle is such as to compel what we know in 
England as the straight or military seat. I have now 
ridden a good deal in the north and west in this sad- 
dle, and like it greatly. The girthing arrangements 
are much more elaborate than with us, and the stirrup 
leathers at first sight seem unnecessarily cumbersome 
until it is explained that they are devised to protect 
the feet and in great measure the legs riding through 
long grass and in brushwood. 

Nothing could exceed the delicious character of 
the morning. The sun was bright, the air clear, crisp, 
and bracing, and the sky was wholly blue — that blue 
which I understand to be meant by an Italian sky. 
It v/as perfectly charming in its exhilarating effects 

— the very perfection of a climate. D assured 

me this was the normal condition of things — some 
very sharp weather in winter and even in summer, but 
never lasting very long and always recurrence to that 



1 62 A Mofith in the United States 

which to-day we experienced. The country itself is 
fairly attractive. The Ratcliffe-Dillon ranch is situ- 
ated along a range of foothills (foothills to the 
Rockies) and it is higher above the sea than the high- 
est Irish mountain, namely, it is over 6,000 feet. It 
is especially well-watered, it is fairly wooded, and the 
character of the grass is exceptionally good. I am 
quite learned in the grasses here. They are chiefly 
three kinds : the wire grass, the gramma or grammar 
grass (orthography doubtful), and the blue grass or 
blue stem grass. The last is by far the finest and most 
nutritious, and in this the Spring's ranch largely 
abounds. Unlike the grasses with us, which, unless 
cut and dried, cannot be saved in stacks, but left stand- 
ing would in our moist climate decompose, the Colo- 
rado grass saves itself on its stem — that is, It dries 
as it stands and so is saved by the climate for the win- 
ter's use of the cattle, or it may be cut and stacked on 
the same day ! This, I need hardly say, is owing to 
the dryness of the atmosphere. This dryness of the 
atmosphere is the difficulty, the only difficulty, in 
Colorado. They have little rain and can do little or 
nothing in the way of cultivation unless they can get 
water for irrigation. The result is that a soil capable, 
with irrigation, of producing anything is in great part 
useless and unproductive. The further result is that 
every little creek or brook, nay, even every little nat- 
ural spring that bubbles up from the ground, is 
eagerly sought, and the land in which it is situated 



A Month in the United States 163 

pre-empted or somehow or other got hold of. In 
these cases its use Is not with reference to cultivation, 
but to provide the needed watering-place for cattle. 

The breed of cattle seems good; and good speci- 
mens of the English Durham and Hereford breeds 
have been Introduced with a view of still further im- 
proving it. For a wide district comprising SedaHa, 
Castle Rock, etc., Denver is the cattle market. Den- 
ver Is the capital of the State and has risen to be a city 
of 90,000 inhabitants, risen indeed all too rapidly, 
for a reaction has followed the Denver "boom" and 
land Is not now nearly so valuable as it was two or 
three years ago. So far as I can see, America must 
have her booms. A boom will fetch a tradesman from 
San Francisco to Portland In Oregon on the chance 
of getting four dollars a day wage Instead of three 
dollars at home. It will bring the trader from east to 
extreme west in the hope of finding himself taking 
part in the building up of a new and great city. The 
other day at Garrison on the Rio Grande, I saw a 
broad-shouldered chap at the depot with his hands in 
his pockets and the unmistakable look of the idling 
loafer about him. 

"What are you doing here?" 

"Waiting for the boom." 

"What boom?" 

"The Garrison boom, I guess." 

"What will that do for you?" 

"I'm a bricklayer, and the boom means $5 a day." 



164 A Month in the United States 

"What can you get now?" 

"Maybe $3!, anyway $3, but I am not going to 
work for that as long as I've a dollar in my pocket." 

"Where did you come from?" 

"I came from the State of Maine at the first, but 
I've been after half a dozen booms since then. I 
came last from San Francisco." 

"Why did you leave San Francisco? Is work short 
there?" 

"Not a bit of It, but I tell you I come after the 
boom. Besides, there are too many Chinamen there. 
I think I'll go to Canada. They tell me there's few 
of them there." 

"Have booms paid you?" 

"Well, not much. I have not always been in time, 
and, like this place, I am too soon it seems." 

This conversation Is almost literally given, and I 
give it because It Is one out of many proofs which 
have come under my eyes of the complete unfixedness 
of the working population. They seem to have no 
attachment to localities except so far as localities offer 
them wage inducements. No doubt this spirit more 
than anything will tend over this great wide Con- 
tinent to level or approximate to levelling the wage 
market. But this restlessness or unfixedness is not, as 
I have said, confined to the working class In the or- 
dinary acceptation of that term. It extends so far as 
I can judge to all classes — tradesmen, miners, mer- 
chants, engineers, farmers, lawyers. The farmers, 



A Month in the United States 165 

one would think, are particularly fixed to localities. 
Far from it. In Canada, in the Northwest States, 
in the southwest States, I have again and again come 
across persons who, having tried farming or stock- 
raising in one or two localities and thought they could 
better themselves elsewhere, have without compunc- 
tion packed up or "boxed up " their household gods 
and turned their backs upon the fields and brooks and 
hills upon which their young eyes had probably first 
rested. No one can truly say the Americans are senti- 
mental. I could mention places where there is per- 
haps a superfluity of sentimentalism. 

The young men, also, in the eastern States of New 
England have thoroughly taken to heart the advice of 
old Horace Greeley. "Go West, young man, go 
West." To such an extent have they migrated west- 
ward that I am assured the female population in the 
New England States is considerably in excess of the 
male population. 

It is clear that this pushing, energetic, adventurous 
restlessness, whatever else may be said for it, is cal- 
culated greatly to help and has greatly helped the 
spread of population and settlement throughout the 
land. I see I've diverged a good deal from the 
Spring's Cattle Ranch. 

It is in extent about 1,400 acres, but each enclosed 
ranch is supplemented by the right — open equally to 
all — to graze upon the unsettled Government lands. 
These are popularly known as "Uncle Sam's" lands. 



1 66 A Month in the United States 

This right is, of course, of very high importance, but 
one which year by year has a more limited area to op- 
erate upon, as the Government lands are sold. How- 
ever, as the land with water on it (as I have before 
explained) is to a great extent bought up, the induce- 
ments to settle on the remainder are yearly diminish- 
ing, unless indeed it is found that the artesian well 
system can generally be applied with success through- 
out the States. This is the great question which is 
agitating Colorado just now. At Denver the artesian 
wells are supplying the towns, and scientists in this 
matter affirm that no difficulty exists in bringing them 
to operation in the rural districts. If so, the question 
of water for cattle-drinking is solved; but that wider 
question of water to meet the needs of the thirsty 
earth for purposes of agriculture will be still unsettled. 

We rode through and round the ranch, and 
through and round several other ranches, including 
one held by Peter Brennan, an Armagh man, and one 
of the earliest settlers in the place. We lunched by 
the side of a running brook, from which we slaked our 
thirst and promptly disposed of Mrs. R.'s excellent 
sandwiches. 

The close of evening found us near Mr. R.'s house, 
and after an exceedingly agreeable ride I rather re- 
luctantly gave up the bridle of my little mare, 
"Peggy," who carried me merrily and well during the 
day. A game of poker, at which I was badly worsted 
by the old settler, finished my day's doings, and by 



A Month in the United States 167 

9.30 I was enjoying profoundly the healthy sleep of 
a healthily-tired man. 

Tuesday, Oct. 2, 1883. 
XT EAR the ranch, at the south end of it, is a place 
^ ^ sometimes called Parry's Park (from the early 
owner's name) and sometimes Pleasant Park. It is 
one of the most picturesque spots I have seen. It is 
nearly surrounded with the well-wooded foothills, 
from which several canons open into it, with creeks or 
brooks which serve useful as well as beautifying pur- 
poses. But the great attraction of the place does not 
lie in these. As you approach the spot, you see at 
some distance what clearly appear to be the ruined 
walls of an ancient and even an important town. The 
illusion is perfect. There the remains of an old cas- 
tle, here what look like the trees of a terrace of 
houses. What is it, then? Simply that nature in 
some very fantastic mood had thrown the sandstone 
rocks into all manner of odd shapes and (if one may 
say so) attitudes. As we approached nearer and could 
single out the rocks, even I, unimaginative person 
that I am, could discover likenesses to all manner of 
beasts and to some human beings also. I will not 
specify the latter, but there were some remarkable 
politicians amongst them. Taken as a whole, the 
place was most attractive, and it only needs an enter- 
prising doctor to discover merits in the water, and a 
friendly editor to publish them, and its real true 



1 68 A Month in the United States 

claims as a health resort could not fail to attract the 
teeming population of Denver in its holidays. I con- 
fess, however, if I were ranching here, I should 
rather have the place as it is. 

We were again up betimes this (Tuesday) morn- 
ing, for I had to catch the early train south to Colo- 
rado Springs at Castle Rock, and the drive to Castle 
Rock is nine miles. 

On the way I had several chapters of Mr. R.'s very 
interesting experiences. 

His own story (which he did not tell) is romantic 
and is mixed up with his early settlement in the north- 
west. 

He is a Derbyshire man, and against the wishes of 
some at least of her relations he wooed his present 
wife, and finally, after the manner of Lord Eldon, 
John Mitchel, and various other distinguished per- 
sons at various times, he eloped with her. 

Soon after he was obliged to come to America with 
a view to obtaining a home and settlement for his 
wife. Her friends took advantage of his absence, 
kept his letters from her, and for several years he was 
ignorant whether she lived or was dead. He con- 
tinued writing, and, probably home vigilance having 
lulled, one of his letters after several years reached 
his wife, and she answered it as a wife should. 
Straightway he returned to England, reclaimed her, 
and brought her to Colorado. They have a fine fam- 
ily of three daughters and one son, all born on Ameri- 



A Month in the United States 169 

can soil. The eldest daughter reached seventeen 
years yesterday. They all work, from the mother to 
the youngest of them, and are bright and active. 

Mr. R.'s experiences of this country, and especially 
of Colorado State, would make a large and interest- 
ing novel. He has driven teams between St. Louis 
and Denver, and he has driven cattle thousands of 
miles south and west at a time when the Indians were 
a living terror to the white man, and when you went 
about very much with your life in your hand. He 
recollects when the buffalo herd fed on the Ratcliffe- 
Dillon ranch, when wolves, including the angry grey 
wolf, were frequently to be seen, and the bear was 
not an infrequent visitor. Later, too, in more settled 
times, he recollects when the settlers used to march 
together to perform any important acts of husbandry, 
such as reaping, threshing, and even cow-milking, for 
purposes of mutual defence against the Indian. 

The change is certainly very wonderful in a period 
of about thirty years, or even less. 

"Does any one ever die here?" I asked, taking a 
long draught of the fresh morning air. 

"Very few," answered Mr. R. "They had to 
shoot a man a little further west to give their ceme- 
tery a start; and here," he said, pointing to Castle 
Rock, "they had to hang a man to begin business. 
That's true." 

Later on he pointed out to me, in the neglected 
corner of the graveyard, the spot where they had 



lyo A Mojith in the United States 

buried a thieving Mexican whom they had caught 
red-handed kilhng a sheep, and whom they promptly 
strung up to the first convenient bough. 

Meanwhile we had mounted the hill which divides 
Sedalia and Castle Rock. The Sedalia foothills were 
sinking at our feet, and behind them was rising the 
nobler range, snow-topped, of the higher Rockies, 
while, away to the south. Pike's Peak was just lifting 
his venerable head within reach of the morning sun. 
Pike's Peak, be It known. Is considerably higher than 
Mount Baker (see ante) and somewhat higher than 
Tacoma or Rainier, but It does not look as high or as 
grand as either of these. The principal reasons are: 
first, that we are looking at this mountain already at 
an elevation of over 6,000 feet, and second, that it 
is surrounded on all sides by a chain of hills, of which 
it is only one and the greatest. 

Castle Rock is the chief town of Douglas County; 
and it is here that the Land Registry is kept. Its cus- 
todian Is a Mr. Jones, from the south of Ireland, who 
fills the office of Clerk of the County. On our way to 
Castle Rock I had a good view of an extensive range 
of "Uncle Sam's Land," and on which the cattle of 
many men were feeding, each man's cattle marked 
with his particular and registered brand. They are 
"rounded up" or gathered In when wanted for market 
or for shelter In winter or for fattening purposes at 
the homesteads. 

After bidding my kind friends good-bye I was soon 



A Month in the United States 171 

rattling away south (over the same ground I had 
travelled on Sunday night) to Colorado Springs. 

On the way I met Mr. Henry Lucy of the Daily 
News, travelling with his wife and intending to stay 
the night at the Springs. They are on their way for 
a five months' tour to Japan and home by India and 
Eastern Europe. 

Colorado Springs is a very pretty place, beautifully 
laid out and planted with trees in all directions and 
with quite a number of handsome buildings; but the 
springs are a delusion. These are at Manitou, some 
four miles off, close at the foot of Pike's Peak. We 
drove down there later in the day. The sulphur and 
soda springs, the latter coming up freshly aerated 
from the earth, are very curious. 

On the top of Pike's Peak is a Government ob- 
servatory in vv'hich a scientist is always stationed, 
night and day, summer and winter, for the purposes 
of observation. It is indeed from the observations 
here made, and similar data gathered in a like way, 
that the American weather predictions, now so fa- 
mous, are compiled. The service is so severe that no 
man remains longer on the Peak than a year; and 
that is long enough, too, when it is remembered that 
for many weeks at a time it is often impossible to 
maintain any carrying or directly human communica- 
tion with the world below. I note here a curious fact 
touching the highly rarefied condition of the air a-top. 
A fierce wind will be blowing there which, if met be- 



172 A Month in the United States 

low, would blow you from your legs, and yet (owing 
to its less density on the high mountain peak) is com- 
paratively little felt. 

Later in the evening I rejoined Martin and Dar- 
ling, and with them went still away south as far as 
Pueblo, whence we resume our easterly route via Kan- 
sas and Ohio States, east. 

Wednesday, Oct. 3, 1883. 

A ROUGHISH road and a bad place in the Pullman 
-^■^ sleeper gave us but an indifferent night's rest, 
and we were not sorry when an early call for break- 
fast at Newtown in Kansas claimed attention, though 
the meal itself was poor enough. On we go on our 
way to St. Louis (our first resting-place), dining at 
Topeka (still in Kansas) and finally reaching Kansas 
City, which is situated on the Kansas River, the divid- 
ing line between Kansas and Missouri States. 

• There is a marked difference between these adjoin- 
ing States, Colorado and Kansas. The former is 
principally a stock-raising State, the latter is every 
day becoming more and more a cultivated agricul- 
tural State. Kansas seems remarkably rich in its soil, 
and a great rush of migration has lately set towards 
it. It has no doubt a great future. 

We dined at Topeka, and night found us in our 
sleeper, speeding away through the great State of 
Missouri, wherein we reached St. Louis at about 
7.30 A.M. 



A Month in the United States 173 

St. Louis, Thursday, Oct. 4, 1883. 
T "^ 7e have looked forward with great expectation 
^ ^ to our visit here, for besides the ordinary at- 
tractions of the great city — the sixth in importance in 
the United States — the State annual fair was in 
progress. 

Alas for the vanity of all human desires ! We were 
long since warned that all was not as it should be for 
the sightseer in the matter of weather. Ever since 
we left the State of Colorado there has been a marked 
change and for the worse. There all was bright, dry, 
cheery, and genial, though bracing and even chilly. 
But through Kansas and Missouri we've been re- 
minded forcibly of that half damp, half foggy, 
wholly cheerless weather, with which we are pretty 
well acquainted in England and in Ireland. Here at 
St. Louis nothing could be worse. The rain was rap- 
idly falling, the air muggy and well charged with 
"smuts," and the draggled finery of the shops and 
public buildings and of the people presented a very 
melancholy and disheartening spectacle. We re- 
solved to go to-night to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on 
our way to Washington via Harrisburgh. 

Meanwhile I found that my good friend, Mr. 
Frank Thomson of Philadelphia, vice-president of 
the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, had asked 
Col. Hill, the resident general superintendent of the 
company at St. Louis, to look after us. 



174 ^ Month in the United States 

Under his escortage and in his carriage we were 
enabled to see a great deal in a short time. St. Louis' 
chief wonder is the great bridge across the Missis- 
sippi, to which I here again raise my hat — built by 
Mr. Eads, who is the engineer of the Panama or 
Darien Canal. It is an enormous structure, so built 
that on one floor or level the public carriages and traf- 
fic pass, and on another level above the railways hav- 
ing depots in the town pass. On one side of the river 
is the State of Illinois, while on the other — the city 
side — is the State of Missouri. Some idea of the 
magnitude and difficulty of the work will be gathered 
when it is recollected that the width of the river at 
this point is more than half a mile; and that to get se- 
cure rock on which to build the piers the architect was 
obliged to sink as much as ninety feet below the mud 
bed of the river. To my mind the great feature of 
the place is the river, which has only just permanently 
received the name of the Mississippi, which it re- 
tains until it loses itself in the Gulf of Mexico at New 
Orleans. A few miles north of St. Louis the great 
rivers, the Missouri and the Mississippi, join forces, 
and thenceforth the Missouri is no longer known; it 
is merged in the Mississippi. Farther on, in the State 
of Ohio, these mighty waters gain a further contin- 
gent in the Ohio River, which in Its turn was made 
up of the rivers Alleghany and Monongahela, which 
are confluent at Pittsburgh. 

St. Louis is a very fine city, and full of fine build- 



A Month hi the United States 175 

ings — the Courthouse, the Washington University, 
the St. Louis University (Jesuit), and several of the 
churches being amongst the finest. The mention of 
the Jesuit college suggests to me to say that there is 
no city in the United States in which there is a finer or 
more efficient set of religious and charitable institu- 
tions in connection with Catholicism than in St. Louis. 

As its name Implies, St. Louis was founded by 
French settlers, as a trading station in 1762, some of 
whom came up river from New Orleans and some, it 
is said, down river from Canada. France had then 
important territory south. The French can now 
hardly be said to form an independent element in the 
population, but there is a part of the city which still 
bears the name of French Town. From St. Louis you 
can go south to New Orleans by river-boat; and If 
only time permitted (it takes four days) I should be 
delighted to make the trip. It is, I am told, most 
agreeable, especially at this season if you can secure 
dry weather. 

In company with Colonel Hill we visited the Fair, 
which consists of an exhibition of the products of all 
kinds. In crops, In manufactures, and in inventions, of 
the State. There are besides prizes for the best 
horses, mules, geese, fowls, etc. 

The focus point of the people (whom I was most 
anxious to see) was the amphitheatre — a lightly con- 
structed building capable of seating 40,000, and 
which to-day, notwithstanding the bad weather, con- 



176 A Month in the United States 

tained not fewer than 30,000. As I have before re- 
marked of other American crowds, so I remark, of 
this. All were orderly, though noisy, and they were 
cheery and good-tempered. I saw nothing approach- 
ing a row in any part, and police were not obtrusively 
visible. I feel sure we could not gather such a crowd 
in Ireland with like results. Again no sign of in- 
sobriety in the crowd, though there is always lots of 
custom certainly for the drinking saloons. But what 
most astonishes me the more I see of the country is 
the absence of all signs of poverty on the surface. I 
say on the surface, because I know that there are, and 
it is inevitable that there should be, some destitutes 
in such an enormous community; but everywhere one 
sees crowds, and always well clad and apparently well 
fed. I have only once been solicited in the United 
States by a beggar, and he was a man with a maimed 
hand. 

The preparations for the Trades' procession, and 
especially for the illumination of the city, were of a 
most elaborate description; but owing to the wretched 
weather both procession and illumination were post- 
poned. 

We started for Pittsburgh at 7 o'clock P.M., and 
through the night were travelling at a good pace 
through the States of Illinois and Indiana, past the 
towns of Vandalia, Indianapolis, and Effingham, until 
finally at 7.40 A.M. we stopped for breakfast at Rich- 
mond in Indiana State. 



A Month in the United States 177 

Friday, Oct. 5, 1883. 
{En route for Pittsburgh) 
/^^N we go again after breakfast through Indiana 
^^ State and through the State of Ohio, past the 
cities of Piqua, Urbana, Columbus (where we dined 
at I P.M.), Newark, and finally we reached Pitts- 
burgh at about 7,30 p.m. 

Unhappily the rainy weather continued. The at- 
mosphere was heavy and foggy; and altogether it 
would be difficult to imagine a greater change in 
climate and temperature than we have witnessed in 
the last two days. Nor is the change confined to the 
climate. Not only is the country looking more and 
more cultivated, and more and more peopled, but on 
all sides are signs of manufacturing industry of vari- 
ous kinds working at a high pressure. The country is 
rich in coal and in iron ore, and along our line we 
see the fierce fires of the blast smelting furnaces, of 
the rolling mills, and of the brick factories. 

Pittsburgh itself is a great manufacturing city, and, 
like many of our English towns of the like order, 
great natural beauty has been defaced by the hand of 
material civilisation. It is situated on two picturesque 
rivers, the Monongahela and the Alleghany, which 
here, as I have earlier said, coalesce and form the 
Ohio River. Beyond the Monongahela the ground 
rises abruptly to the height of several hundred feet, 
the streets rising in terrace above terrace and being 



lyS A Month in the United States 

approached from the lower levels not only by sloping 
inclines but by elevators on the principle (hydraulic, 
I think) of those at Scarborough, 

As we walked over the bridge from the Alleghany 
to the Monongahela side last night, the scene was 
very striking. The river is here very wide, but not 
deep ; and in the darkness of the night the fires which 
were close to the river's edge seemed to flare up from 
the river itself and to be continued high up in the air 
— really along the dark hillside. We met railway 
trains of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company career- 
ing through the streets in all directions in a way quite 
startling, to one used to the careful ways, in this re- 
gard, of the old country. On they went across and 
along thoroughfares, and crowded thoroughfares, 
too, and yet (strange to say) accidents are, I learn, 
not at all common. 

At Pittsburgh a pleasant surprise awaited us. Mr. 
Frank Thomson had sent on his private car from 
Philadelphia in charge of his man, Joe Green, who 
stood grinning a kindly welcome to us on our arrival. 

Nothing could exceed the comfort of this car; we 
have nothing in England to which I could refer you 
for a parallel. Sitting-room and library commanding 
a fine and unbroken view of the country, large dining- 
room, comfortable bedrooms and excellent kitchen 
cooking arrangements over which (as I afterwards 
found) Joe Green presides with excellent results. Our 



A Month in the United States 179 

car was backing into a siding where we were to- 
morrow morning (Saturday) to be hooked to 
the end of the 8 o'clock train and comfortably 
taken to Washington, and on to Harrisburg and Balti- 
moie. 

But before morning comes the night, and such a 
night 1 As we started early, Joe thought we had bet- 
ter sleep in our luxurious car, and so we went to bed, 
but not to sleep ! Anything more awful than the hid- 
eous babel of sound which reached my ears in the 
siding you cannot imagine. Bang-bang-clang-clang- 
shriek-shriek — all the night through. But for 
the fact that we had had two bad nights' rest, and at 
the same time two very hard days' work I do not 
think I could have closed my eyes in unconsciousness, 
not for a moment. As it was, I did get a little sleep, 
but so hideously broken in upon that it brought little 
rest. Never again, even in the most luxurious of cars, 
shall I pass another night in the siding at the railway 
depot of a bustling American town — no, not if I 
know it. 

I break off here. I must reserve for my next 
despatch the incidents of, in many respects, the 
most interesting journey I have yet had, viz, : 
from Pittsburgh through the Alleghany Moun- 
tains and along the Taranita Valley via Altoona, 
Tyrone, Harrisburg, and Baltimore to Wash^ 
Ington. 



l8o A Month in the United States 

Saturday, Oct. 6, 1883. 
{En route Pittsburgh to Washington) 

I WAS glad when the morning broke bright and 
promising. A night of grave discomfort was 
passed, and a day full of hopeful anticipation begun. 
Our car was luxurious, the weather promised well, 
and we knew that the journey across the Alleghanies 
and along and over noble river after noble river in 
quick succession was considered generally as covering 
about the finest scenery on the eastern part of this 
continent. Well, the scenery deserved to the full its 
high character, but unhappily it was very soon appar- 
ent that our weather-luck was about to desert us. The 
clouds gathered rapidly and hung sulkily along the 
hill slopes; and before we had traversed many 
miles it was but too plain we were in for a bad 
day, and the rain was falling rapidly. It was a 
great pity. Even the murky atmosphere could not 
hide from us the singular beauty of the country; 
but the beauty was of that kind which to be seen 
at its best required warmth and light and plenty of 
these. 

Generally it may be said that the scenery was of 
the rich, cultivated, comfortable kind — although here 
and there (as in the ascent and descent of the Alle- 
ghany chain) it was striking. We are in the great 
State of Pennsylvania — by far the most important 
State in point of manufacturing industries, such as 



A Month in the United States i8i 

coal and other ores, and also the seat of great and 
successful agriculture. 

In very many respects I was from time to time re- 
minded of bits of English landscape; but here there 
was that wonderful brilliancy of autumn leaf-tints 
which England can make no pretence at equalling. In 
point of population, also, it seemed comparable with 
the counties through which say the London and 
Northwestern Railway with us runs. Again this sug- 
gests a further point of resemblance. The Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad is incomparably the best built and 
maintained and equipped railroad in the United 
States. Everywhere are the signs of careful, punc- 
tilious management, and I very much doubt whether 
any of the great railways of the Old World are in any 
respect better built or ballasted or managed than the 
Pennsylvania system here. 

On all sides were apparent the presence of great in- 
dustries — the freight-trains laden with grain, and coal 
and iron ore and manufactured products in iron. And 
from time to time, as we rolled along at express speed, 
we sighted now the coal-pit, now the smelting fur- 
nace, now the rolling mills, now the brick kilns, and 
so forth. They say that further south (say in Ala- 
bama) they can produce iron at considerably cheaper 
rates than in Pennsylvania, and it may be so. So far 
as I can see, Pennsylvania has a secure future, even 
if part of its industry were removed elsewhere; and 
even this is a remote danger, for a trade once "lo- 



1 82 A Month in the United States 

cated" is slow to move, and if to-morrow free-trade 
were to become the popular cry at the hustings, 
Pennsylvanian capital and energy would find a fresh 
and no doubt profitable outlet before the absence of 
protection could be seriously felt. As regards for- 
midable competition from the south, I believe that is 
coming, but the conditions of labour and the condi- 
tions relatively of capital and labour are there so un- 
satisfactory as to make this, too, no more than a very 
remote danger. 

Starting about 8.30 A.M. we found ourselves at 
noon beside the Conemaugh River — a tributary, too, 
of the Ohio — and beginning the ascent of the Alle- 
ghany Mountains, the last we surmount on our jour- 
ney eastward. I am not going to prose you with an 
account in detail of this ascent. It possessed no fea- 
tures of grandeur at all comparable with the passage 
of the Rockies in the State of Montana north, or in 
the State of Colorado south; but it had an Interest pe-^ 
culiarly its own. The slopes have a refined, culti- 
vated, civilised, tame look about them which, al- 
though not of the highest order of scenery, is all the 
same pleasant to the eye and agreeably suggestive. 
Besides all this the glorious tints of autumn had in- 
vested the woods on the hillside with a gorgeousness 
quite novel to me. Still the next day was not favour- 
able to seeing this at its best, although I confess to be- 
ing charmed with it in spite of the descending rain 
which subdued its brilliancy. The Horseshoe ascent 



A Month in the United States 183 

Is famous in American railway photography and in- 
deed deserves to be. For a distance of about twelve 
miles we are making an ascent averaging about 106 
feet to the mile until we reach Gallitzin (I think), 
where a lengthy tunnel reminds one of Rugby tunnel 
or that between Manchester and Doncaster on (I be- 
lieve) the Midland Route. I mention this tunnel to 
note the fact that here very much less tunnelling is 
done than with us. They prefer — at least in the 
earlier history of the railways — to make even a con- 
siderable detour. Later on when the railway has be- 
come a success and can afford luxuries and desires to 
economise time, tunnelling is more frequently resorted 
to and in the same way gradients lessened and curves 
made less abrupt. 

At Altoona we are fairly on the east side of the 
Alleghany divide, and in Altoona we recognise a 
counterpart of Crewe — for Altoona is to the Pennsyl- 
vanian Railroad what Crewe Is to the London & 
N. W. Railway — Its mighty workshop. 

On, on we roll past Tipton, Tyrone, Birmingham, 
Petersburgh, Lewlstown, to Duncannon, where we 
enter upon another of the many lovely valleys of the 
country, the -Innlato valley, and for about 100 miles 
our train Is running close by the beautiful but not 
mighty stream which gives Its name to the valley. 

Still on, on we go until as we approach close to 
Harrisburg (the capital of the State of Pennsyl- 
vania) we cross one of the loveliest, finest, and most 



184 A Month in the United States 

picturesque of the many great rivers — the Susque- 
hanna. I was perfectly charmed with this river — its 
width, its great volume of water, its sloping banks, its 
luxuriant vegetation, and the wealth and beauty of 
colour in its trees. I was indeed delighted with it. 
Where we crossed, the river is little short of a mile in 
width. Considering the vast extent of this continent 
and its great and frequent mountain ranges — many 
of them in perpetual winter garb — I ought not per- 
haps to be surprised; but I am nevertheless con- 
stantly surprised at the frequency of wide-spreading, 
deep, and rapid rivers. I check my surprise, but as 
each new, great river appears to delight me, up comes 
my feeling of surprise once more. 

I have said Harrisburg is the capital of the State. 
It will have been noticed how seldom it is that the 
capital of the State is the chief town of the State. For 
instance, Albany is the capital of the State of New 
York, which has within it the greatest city in the 
States; and here again Harrisburg is the capital of 
Pennsylvania, which has Philadelphia, the second city 
of the States within it. The reasons for this arrange- 
ment are partly geographical and partly political. 
The geographical reasons have reference to conven- 
ience as to central position and so on, but the political 
reasons are also strong. It is considered desirable 
that the legislative body of each State should not 
meet where a particular party is exceptionally strong 
in political and general importance. This is a matter 



A Month in the United States 185 

of statesmanship, but, further, the great bulk of the 
voting power in the State will generally (Impelled 
partly by meaner motives) combine against "locat- 
ing" the Legislature in the biggest and therefore the 
most powerful place. 

From Harrlsburg to Washington via Baltimore 
we saw little, for the night had fallen and It was late 
when we entered the stately, dignified capital of the 
United States — named after America's patron saint 
(If America could own such a weakness) George 
Washington. 



Washington, Sunday, Oct. 7, 1883. 
"\T 7e were up soon after the sun, and our Impres- 
* ^ sions overnight of the dignity of this great 
capital city were fortified. It is by far the most ele- 
gant city I have seen in the States, with an air, too, 
of refinement about It which Is not to be found In all 
cities. For instance, with all Its great commercial im- 
portance, Chicago Is "sweaty" and smells somehow 
of pig; San Francisco with all its brightness and po- 
tentialities in the future has still the nouveau riche 
flavour; and New York, centre at once of commercial 
and intellectual activity, has an air of restless unrest 
about it — a feeling of feverishness, as if the spirit of 
Wall Street had leavened all its society. 

St. Matthew's Church, which we visited early in 
the morning, presented some novel features In a house 



1 86 A Month in the United States 

for Catholic worship. The hateful pew system cov- 
ered the whole place. But worse — with hardly an ex- 
ception, the pews were locked ! After some searching 
I got into one, but soon after a lady entered, prob- 
ably its proprietor, who looked at me as if very little 
would induce her to bring an action for trespass 
against me qitare clausum fregit. It was a novel, 
wholly novel, experience. I enquired of a lady as we 
left the church, "Are there any free seats?" 

"No." 

"Are there any people in Washington who are too 
poor to pay for a pew?" 

"Oh, yes, no doubt." 

"What becomes of them?" 

"I don't know, they go elsewhere. This is not the 
only church. This is the fashionable church. It is 
here the representatives of the various Catholic Lega- 
tions come to Mass. If one did not lock the pews, 
you would have no use of the pew you pay for." 

I spent the day perambulating the city and sailing 
on the steamboats that ferry passengers up and down 
and across the Potomac, on whose eastern bank the 
city stands. The day was most enjoyable, and the 
crisp, bright atmosphere helped to bring out the 
beauty of the public buildings sharply and clearly. 

The public buildings are very fine : the Treasury, 
the Post Office Department, the Army and Navy — 
all planned in a sensible, practical spirit, but possessing 
besides considerable architectural beauty. The white 



A Month in the United States 187 

marble, granite, and red sandstone, of which the 
town is built, present an agreeable variety; and the 
trees which are growing in all parts, and the open 
public planted spaces, which are numerous, combine 
to give an appearance of quiet elegance which I have 
rarely met with, even in the old cities of the Old 
World. I expect in fifty years Washington will com- 
pare favourably with any city in the world. At pres- 
ent it looks as if it had not been built up as speedily 
as its founders expected, but I learn that wealthy men 
from other parts of the States are beginning — apart 
from politics — to take up their residences there, and 
that the refinement of its society is beginning to be 
recognised. Just now, too, there is a big scheme on 
foot to reclaim permanently from the river large, 
shallow, covered mudbanks, which will at once add 
considerably to the space available for public pur- 
poses and also to the healthful character of the city. 
Opposite to Washington, on the other side of the 
Potomac, is the residence of the late General Lee, 
who fought so gallantly and brilliantly for the South. 
It is a hopeful sign to note that all without distinction 
of North or South refer with pride to the bravery and 
skill manifested in the War of Secession. Some miles 
down the Potomac, on its way to Chesapeake Bay, is 
Mount Vernon, once Washington's residence, but 
now national property, where are gathered together 
some precious relics of the great soldier-statesman of 
America ; but I was not able to go down to see it. 



1 88 A Month in the United States 

Here in the city is to be seen, lifting up its head higher 
and higher towards the sky, a very noble monument 
to his memory. It was begun forty years ago, and it 
is hardly creditable that in 1863 it had progressed 
but a short way. The Civil War caused a long sus- 
pension of the work, but within the last few years it 
has progressed with speed. It is now (I believe) 
about 400 feet high, but it is to be considerably 
higher. Its design is very simple but impressive — a 
great square column gradually tapering, made of im- 
mense blocks of white marble. It stands in the public 
park, and although not on very high ground, it pre- 
sents itself to notice in all directions and at very long 
distances from the city. 

On the opposite bank of the Potomac is the city of 
Alexandria, to which I refer only to say that from the 
steamboat you get an excellent view of Washington, 
sloping gradually up the river bank, and very fair 
to see in the bright warm glow of this October 
evening. 

From Baltimore south the number of the negroes 
increases in a marked manner, and here in Washing- 
ton there is a large population of them. I wish to say 
of this long-oppressed race that, so far as I can judge, 
they are playing their part in life, on the whole, well 
and creditably. I speak of what I have myself seen. 
All over the country, in the Pullman sleepers, they 
act as porters, rarely as conductors; though I have 
thought at times that many of them were superior to 



A Month in the United States 189 

their superiors. In many places — San Francisco, for 
instance — they monopohse the waiting to a great ex- 
tent. They are rising certainly, but rising slowly in 
the social scale. Nor is this to be wondered at, for it 
must be admitted that they are looked upon with dis- 
favour even by many who were advocates for their 
enfranchisement. It is difficult to get whites to work 
harmoniously with them, and for this physical reasons 
are sometimes put forward. 

I am told that the negroes farther south are not 
like the negroes I have seen, that the former show 
no trace of improvement from the old days when their 
masters owned them. Of this I cannot speak, but I 
must say I have found them north, west and east, 
good-natured, patient, fairly intelligent, and, when 
properly approached, quite anxious to be obliging. I 
must speak of one in particular, my friend Joe Green, 
who is a kind of factotum and a very valuable one, 
too, for Mr. Frank Thomson on board his railway 
car. Joe is porter, conductor, cook, courier, and 
valet, all rolled into one; and he is excellent in each 
capacity, and in all. In a word, I know no white man 
in his rank of life who could, in racing parlance, give 
an ounce to Joe Green over any intelligent course. 
Full bred. 

The grown negroes are not beautiful to look at, 
but they are well-built generally and the little picka- 
ninnies are really often very pretty, with their curly 
black heads, funny rolling eyes, and pearly white 



I90 A Month in the United States 

teeth. I am sure May and Bertie, Lily and Margaret 
would be delighted with them. 

There is a considerable Irish population in Wash- 
ington, and an informant whom I believe to be reli- 
able told me that between them and the Germans the 
greater part of the real estate of the city is engrossed. 

Of one man, a county Armagh man, born near 
Belleek, not far from Newry in the direction of New- 
town Hamilton, I must speak. He is typical, in some 
respects at least, of many of his countrymen in 
America. They have several children. One is a law- 
yer and newspaper editor in, I think, Arizona. The 
younger ones are learning trades, or are becoming 
well-educated. He Insisted on my walking with him 
to his house, where there were assembled some friends 
from Philadelphia to celebrate his silver wedding. 
[By the by, it is time to think of celebrating another 
silver wedding!] At his house, in every way com- 
fortable, he got his youngest child, aged about nine — 
a girl — to play some Irish airs, which she did fairly 
well. 

We talked over his own history and incidentally 
of politics. 

He fought for the North all through the war and 
has now buried somewhere in his chest a bullet which 
the surgeons cannot get at and which occasionally 
troubles him. He is now a clerk in a Government 
department at Washington. 

He is a Democrat in American politics and firmly 



A Month in the United States 191 

believes (as I find a good many more do also) not 
only that General McClellan was the great soldier of 
the North, but also that, if he had been loyally sup- 
ported at the beginning, he would have made short 
work of it. He believes that, because he (McClel- 
lan) was a Democrat, the Republicans in power were 
unwilling that he should have too much glory; for 
they knew that that meant the advent of the Demo- 
crats to power and McClellan for President. As to 
home politics, he is, like all the Easterners, with few 
exceptions whom we met, an advanced Nationalist- 
Any man who, by any means almost short of murder 
and dynamite, would try to help Ireland, and (which 
is often thought to be the same thing) flout England 
and England's statesmen, has his best sympathies. He 
is inclined to think Parnell too moderate. He is a 
diligent reader of the "Irish World," published by a 
Mr. Patrick Ford, which I have only twice seen, but 
which I find is a real power amongst the Irish here. 
They believe in Mr. Ford's honesty; and they know 
it means ill to England and believe it means well to 
Ireland. There is no journalist in America who to 
so large an extent can influence the pockets and the 
political action of the Irish in America. 

Kilmartin is another Irishman, in America almost 
from boyhood, who learned his trade of blacksmith 
here, and who is now a master of his craft with men 
in his employment. He is as ardent a politician as 
the other, and heartily devoted to the old Faith. He 



192 A Month in the United States 

was spending Sunday in visiting the neighbourhood 
of Alexandria, where two of his children are at Cath- 
olic boarding-schools. I find that on the whole the 
influence of Catholic priests is great in America 
amongst Catholics, but nothing compared with what 
it is, or rather with what it was, years ago in Ireland. 
This lessened influence by no means necessarily implies 
lessened religious devotion. In truth to the evil pol- 
icy, in bygone times, of England, the priesthood in 
Ireland owed much of their influence. Who was 
there to "stand up to" the local landlord but the 
priest? Who to vindicate public rights against pri- 
vate oppression but the priest? And when the law 
gave the franchise to the peasant-serf, but enjoined 
that It should be exercised under the eye of agent and 
bailiff, who but the priest was bold enough to tell the 
people that in their union they could defy landlord 
tyranny? Who but the priest with voice loud enough 
to reach them, to tell them that the right exercise of 
the franchise was a matter not of caprice or private 
Interest, but public duty? I do not refer to those 
times still further back when law made the persecuted, 
spy-hunted priest an object of deepest love and high- 
est veneration. 

With altered conditions — better laws in Ireland, 
with the gradually growing Independence and 
strength and intelligence of the people. It Is In the na- 
ture of things that the priest should keep more and 
more within the sanctuary and mix less and less In 



A Month in the United States 193 

secular affairs, and even In political affairs, save where 
these seem to affect some moral interests. 

On this point it is curious and Interesting to note 
the altered tone of a portion of the English press. 
Time was when It was confidently said — undo, under- 
mine the influence of the Catholic priest: take educa- 
tion wholly from his control; free the Irish people 
from the spiritual thraldom which they suffer, and 
the Anglo-Irish diflficulty will speedily come to an end. 

Well — what do these same scribes say now? I 
will not stop to give the answer. 

I have had a very long tramp to-day and a long 
scribble, and exhausted nature cries out, "Spare your- 
self and your devoted family for the present." Amen» 
I sleepily respond. 

Monday, Oct. 8, 1883. 
(Washington and en route for New York) 
'' I ^ 0-DAY we continued our peregrination. I will 
-^ say nothing of the art and scientific collection 
beyond this, that Corcoran's (due to the munificent 
endowment of a banker of that name) Art Gallery 
has many notable objects, amongst them Power's fa- 
mous "Greek Slave," and that the Smithsonian 
Museum (also due to private munificence) Is rich in 
objects of interest in natural history, and especially 
relating to early America. 

The White House (the President's residence) Is a 
fine, roomy, plain, sensible gentleman's residence on 



194 ^ Month in the United States 

a large scale — nothing more. President Arthur was 
in New York, but the gates were open ; and, whether 
the President be there or not, the people are free to 
come and go as far as the grounds are concerned. 
There is no pretentious fuss about, and no soldier or 
policeman was, or generally is, in attendance. 

The Capitol, of which Washington himself laid 
the foundation stone, is a building of which Ameri- 
cans are proud and with reason. It comprises the 
Senate House, the House of Representatives, the 
Congressional Library, and the Court, in which the 
Supreme Court of Appeal of the United States sits. 

I could, I should think, mention several public 
buildings which in some particulars I should prefer 
to the Capitol ; but, taking it as a whole, its situs, its 
general effect, its suitability for all allotted purposes, 
and the practical common-sense brought to bear in 
carrying out these purposes, I cannot name any one 
building of a similar nature which, I think, is equal 
to it. 

I won't describe its parts in detail. The House of 
Representatives is adorned with fine portraits of La- 
fayette and Washington; and I notice in the outer 
lobby several large paintings of greater or less artistic 
merit, one-half of them perpetuating incidents of the 
great war of the Revolution and England's defeated 
part in them, and perpetuated, I need hardly say, 
purely from the American standpoint. 

The House of Representatives is larger, a good 



A Month in the United States 195 

deal larger, than the English House of Commons, 
and its arrangements take greater care of the physical 
comfort of its members. Each member has a com- 
fortable chair with a convenient writing desk in front 
of him. Contrast this with the scramble for seats in 
the Commons, with its absence of all writing or note- 
taking conveniences and the difference is striking, and 
oh ! the misery for the first time of rising with only 
the bare back of a bench before you. 

There is, it seems, no recognised place for Repub- 
licans and Democrats, or for government and non- 
government men. There is a general ballot, but by 
exchange and mutual concession men get settled down 
amongst those with whom they usually act, as with 
us. 

This is not the place in which to stop to notice the 
extraordinary fact that in the American system of 
political government the Cabinet of the President are 
not seated in the legislative chambers to propound or 
to defend the policy of the Government of the day. 
But it is a curious political fact. 

I regretted we were obliged to leave Washington 
so soon, though I believe we pretty well exhausted its 
objects of interest. Between Washington and Phila- 
delphia the journey is through a country interesting 
in itself, and interesting because full of incidents re- 
lating to the two great struggles in which young 
America has so far been engaged. Between Wash- 
ington and New York, indeed, the whole country is 



196 A Month in the United Stales 

interesting and picturesque, numbers of rivers which 
anywhere else would deserve to be called great rivers, 
again and again appearing. Between the points last 
named we touch or cross the Potomac, the Gunpow- 
der, the Bush, the Susquehanna (which discharges 
into Chesapeake Bay), the Delaware and the Passaic 
rivers amongst others. I will not stop to describe 
them; but the Susquehanna looked especially lovely 
where we crossed it, the town of Havre-de-Grace be- 
ing on one side and Ferryville on the other. 

At Philadelphia we were joined by Mr, Thomson 
and by some of his friends, who, like Mr. Thomson 
and myself, were to dine at the Knickerbocker Club 
in the evening — of which more hereafter, 

I had hoped to be able to return to Philadelphia 
later, but to my great regret this was found to be im- 
possible. 

Philadelphia is in population the second city in the 
States, while in the area it covers and in the number 
of its buildings it comes first. It has historic interest, 
too — for it was here in 1776 that the Declaration of 
Independence was signed and published. By the way, 
I learned at Washington that Charles Carroll of Car- 
rolton, the only Irishman and Catholic who so far 
as I know was a signatory to this Declaration, has 
living descendants held in honour and respect. 

From Philadelphia to Jersey City was only at most 
a two hours' journey by express train, and in the 
pleasant company in which I found myself it seemed 



A Month in the United States 197 

much less, I must say something of the personnel 
of this party. Imprimis, Mr. Thomson, not given 
to long monologues himself, but following ap- 
parently with Interest the monologues of other people 
and always ready to draw others out. Mr. Rawle, a 
Philadelphia lawyer of some eminence — "Rawle on 
Covenants" — in fact, gentlemanly, quiet, and unas- 
suming. Mr. MacVeagh is a lawyer of note. He 
was Attorney-General of the States during poor 
President Garfield's short reign. He, although an 
Irishman by parentage, is to my eye in some respects 
more like the typical Yankee in physique than many 
whom I have met. In manner his descent is betrayed. 
He interested me very much — a lean, colourless, wiry 
man, distinctly bilious-looking. He is vehement, elo- 
quent, humorous, and apparently greatly in earnest 
about every topic which cropped up big and little. 
He is a Republican in politics, but (as I gathered) 
had kicked over the traces; is anything but a docile 
man in the hands of the wire-pullers, and altogether 
the kind of man who has views and ideas of his own 
which greatly detract from his value as a steady-go- 
ing, thick-and-thin party adherent. And there are 
men, even in politics, to be found to admire such men ! 
The only unmentioned one of our party was Sena- 
tor Bayard — Democrat Senator for the State of Dela- 
ware, or, to speak in more constitutional language, 
returned for that State. He is a big, jolly, good- 
looking man with indications of power about his 



198 A Mo7tth in the United States 

rather massive head and face. A political opponent, 
but admirer of his, afterwards told me "If Bayard 
were nominated by the Democrats, he would be Presi- 
dent to a certainty." 

"How is that?" 

"Well, he is a fairly able man, and he is more than 
a fairly honest man." 

"Will he get the Democratic nomination?" 

"No chance, I think, but I don't know." 

"Why?" 

"Well, I guess he is too honest for his party. They 
would want to stipulate with him that he would turn 
out neck and crop all the Republicans in office. They 
want all the loaves and fishes for themselves — all, big 
and little. Now Senator Bayard, I guess, would go 
a long way to meet views but not that length." 

I played the part of listener with interest and 
amusement and soon we found ourselves at Jersey 
City. 

I prefer listening in American conversation and for 
several reasons. You learn more by holding your 
tongue unless indeed you open it to ask questions. But 
more, the conversation is more or less of an effort. 
Very frequently American gentlemen "orate" where 
we should talk in conversation loosely and without 
any very close attention to our parts. 

The dinner at the Knickerbocker was pleasant and 
good — our host, Mr. C. Randolph Robinson, whom 
you will recollect in Harley Street — a leading New 



A Month in the United States 199 

York lawyer and an amiable, gentlemanly man. He 
might not take it for a compliment, and I mean 
merely to say what I think, when I add that he is 
very like in manner what a good type of man at the 
Bar with us is. Lord Coleridge, Lord Justice Bowen, 
and myself were the only foreigners present. 
Amongst the notables was the head of the house of 
Astor, the largest real estate owners in the city and 
whose wealth is said to be enormous. He seemed a 
quiet, unassuming man who made no large contribu- 
tion to the stock of talk. Mr. Evarts was also here, 
pleasant, witty, and as unserious on serious topics as 
ever. His partner, Mr. Choate, too — a man of con- 
siderable reputation. By the way, what a relief it 
would be to have that partnership system at the Bar 
with us. I feel I have now got to that time of life 
when I could lend the dignity of my name, such as it 
is, and the benefit of a general supervising experience 
to an efficient partner who should be allowed to earn 
all the money (sharing it with me) and also to enjoy 
all the honour and glory ! 

My neighbour was a benevolent, chubby, and in- 
teresting man, Mr. John Jay, formerly a lawyer, and 
grandson of the first Chief Justice of the United 
States. 

The Chief Justice was (with Franklin and others) , 
one of the American representatives in the peace ne- 
gotiations and stoutly resisted the advice of Franklin 
to rely on the guidance and counsels of France, which 



200 A Month in the United States 

the Chief Justice thoroughly distrusted. Mr. Jay is 
delighted to find that only quite recently the labori- 
ous researches of Mr. Lecky have thoroughly vin- 
dicated his distinguished ancestor's wisdom and con- 
duct. 

The only remaining guest I need mention is my 
friend, Mr. Cadwalader, also a lawyer of distinction 
of New York, to whose kind hospitality and attention 
much of the pleasure of my visit to America is due. 
You will have noticed how many of the people whose 
names I introduce belong to the profession of the law. 
No doubt "birds of a feather flock together"; but the 
fact is that lawyers are about the most numerous pro- 
fessional class in the country, and they have managed 
to secure a larger share in the government of their 
country in important places than probably any two 
other classes together. I propose to treat you here- 
after to some general observations upon some special 
points of interest which have struck me, and I shall 
again recur to this topic. 

The evening passed very enjoyably, but I must ad- 
mit the conversation had occasionally more of effort 
and less of careless spontaneity than with us. "Oh," 
said one of my friends in answer to my observation, 
"it isn't merely that they orate, they perorate"; any- 
way, they cannot be accused of what our distinguished 
conversationalists, including Macaulay the brilliant, 
were said habitually to do — namely, prepare their 
topics a priori and get some ingenious friend to lead 



A Month in the United States 201 

up to their carefully prepared impromptus. By the 
way I find the Chief Justice of England has acquired 
quite a reputation as a raconteur. He certainly has 
no end of stories which he is always willing to let off 
pleasantly upon very slight provocation in whatever 
company he chances to find himself. 



Tuesday, Oct. 9, 1883. 
(At New York) 
A FTER the many discomforts inseparable from pro- 
■^^^ longed and rapid travelling I am glad to find my- 
self at the Hotel Brunswick once more in comfort- 
able if not luxurious quarters. New York is to me 
what Capua was to Hannibal's soldiers, but it will 
not, I hope, have the same enervating effects. 

I had noticed in the papers in the west several times 
that I was to be asked to lead in the defence of 
O'Donnell, but, not finding any despatches on the sub- 
ject on my arrival here, I had begun to hope there was 
nothing in the rumour. The case seems a desperate 
one, and besides, as you know, criminal cases are very 
wide of my line. This morning, however, a gentleman 
waited upon me (Mr. Moran, I think was his name) 
who said he was connected with the legal profes- 
sion and also (as I understood him) connected with 
the "Irish World," which has been instrumental in 
collecting funds for O'Donnell's defence. I told him 
I had heard nothing from England about the matter; 



202 A Month in the United States 

that the case was out of my ordinary line of practice; 
that Mr. Sullivan could thoroughly well do all that 
it was possible to do in such a case, and that I could 
say nothing definite about the matter until I reached 
England, except this, that personally I should much 
prefer not to be in the case, but that I should not feel 
justified professionally in declining to act if my ser- 
vices were desired by the prisoner's friends. In short, 
I did not like the case, but would not shirk the re- 
sponsibility. 

I own to the fear that it may be desired to conduct 
the defence upon lines not wholly conceived with a 
view to saving O'Donnell's life. Against this, if I 
have anything to do with the case, I shall steadfastly 
set my face. 

I went to lunch at the Windsor with Lord Justice 
Bowen and Lord Carington, Lord Coleridge and his 
son. Major Baring also lunched there. We had a 
very cheery party. The Chief Justice w^as in great 
spirits and has obviously enjoyed his trips to Chicago, 
St. Louis, and elsewhere. He has had to do a good 
deal of talking, or as they frequently call it here, chin- 
music. The appetite of the Americans for oratory 
seems to me insatiable. In this respect they beat the 
Irish hollow. I have seen them sit through hours of 
oratory — good, bad, and indifferent, and show no 
signs of impatience. He dined at a so-called private 
dinner party in Chicago, at which he was assured no 
press man would be present, but was horrified to hear 



A Month in the United States 203 

his host informed that copies of his (the host's) 
speech of the evening had been duly forwarded to the 
local papers. In the result the speeches lasted till the 
small hours of the morning, and the Chief Justice had 
the satisfaction of seeing the host's speech, full of wit 
and epigram, carefully and literally reported ! 

This Windsor Hotel is one of the finest, if not the 
finest, in New York. The best hotels here are cer- 
tainly dearer than the best with us — for instance, 
Lord Carington paid for a small sitting-room and a 
bedroom seventeen dollars a day, covering bed and 
board. At the Brunswick the charge for a small bed- 
room with a bath annexed is from five dollars per day, 
for rooms alone. 

In the evening Martin and I dined together quietly 
and afterwards went to the Madison Square Theatre 
and saw a piece called "The Rajah." Neither play 
nor players were remarkable. By the way, the usual 
mode of spelling "theater" and "center" are as I have 
here written them down. Traveller and travelling 
are almost invariably spelt with one "1." 

New York, Wednesday, Oct. 10, 1883. 
'T^His was comparatively a quiet day. The morn- 
^ ing I spent walking about the streets, which re- 
mind me more of Paris than of any other place. 

In the afternoon I went with my friend Mr. E. L. 
Godkin, partly by the elevated railway and partly by 



204 ^ Month in the United States 

carriage, to the gentlemen's driving park, Fleetwood, 
to see some good trotting. This elevated railway is, 
so far as I know, a perfectly unique institution. It 
traverses the city practically from end to end, run- 
ning through, or to be more correct, running above 
some of the most busy thoroughfares at an elevation 
of (speaking roughly) fifty to one hundred and fifty 
feet. It extends beyond the Central Park, and near 
this its elevation is greatest. Standing upon what in 
the distance seems very slight scaffolding, and seen 
from a low standpoint against the warm evening sky, 
the appearance of the train speeding along as it were 
in mid-air is very startling. So far as I can gather no 
compensation was paid to the owners of property in 
the streets along which the railway runs, although in 
many cases the real damage done must have been con- 
siderable. The number of passengers carried by it 
must be something enormous. For ten cents you can 
journey its entire length; and for five cents you can 
go the full length of any of the stages or tram rail- 
ways. Moving about the city by these means is one 
of the few cheap things in America. But, if you come 
to use a one-horse or two horse carriage the charges 
are about double or treble our ordinary cab fares, but 
you get a much more respectable looking article. 

The trotting drive at Fleetwood, which is club 
property, is a circular measured mile in circumference, 
with a members' stand and enclosure, and also with 
one open to the public on payment. This trotting 



A Month in the United States 205 

seems a passion with New York gentlemen, and I 
think Mr. W. H. Vanderbilt would hear with greater 
equanimity of the failure of a great coup in Wall 
Street than he would that Mr. Work had a newly-ac- 
quired team which would beat hollow the record of 
his famous trotters, Maud S. and Aline. 

Several of the men and of the. horses famous in 
trotting circles were here. Mr. Work and his famous 
team, Swiveller and Edward; Mr. Shepperd F. 
Knapp and a pair of very promising youngsters; and 
Mr. W. K. Vanderbilt, but neither Maud S. nor Aline 
was here. The main feature of the day's sport was a 
race among the members driving their own teams In 
ordinary trotting wagons with the restriction that the 
horses competing should not previously have exceeded 
a certain time record, as, for Instance, a mile In 2.40 
or 2.50. The false starts were the principal Interest 
In the race. There were some nine competitors, and, 
as a flying start is permitted, the difliculty Is to get 
them at the right moment on equitable terms. 

Of much more Interest to me was the speeding of 
Mr. Work's crack team round the course under the 
guidance of a crack driver, John Murphy. I said 
to Mr. Knapp, "Is he a good man at this work?" 

"About the best we have and honest as steel." 

Murphy seemed quite a popular hero, very much 
after the manner of Archer, Fordham, John Osborn, 
and Cannon with us. Murphy Is a man of about 
forty, a lithe, spare frame, good, broad shoulders, 



2o6 A Month in the United States 

and a determined face. Oft they go for a breather 
round the track; and, as they come round the home- 
stretch, they are going at a capital pace; and, nearing 
the starting-point, John Murphy is seen to nod to the 
gentlemen in the Judges' stand; and, as the team dash 
past, the official stop watches (and hundreds besides) 
are set to check the record. "They will do the mile 
in a shade under 2.20," said Mr. Work, to whose 
kindness I was indebted for this treat. 

On they went at what seemed to me a terrific pace, 
sending up a cloud of sand and dust which rendered 
quite necessary the protective goggles with which the 
driver was adorned. As they came closer to us, the 
speed seemed even greater; and, as they were round- 
ing for the home stretch, Mr. Work's quick eye de- 
tected something wrong. "By gad, Edward has 
broke. Well, I would have laid a thousand dollar 
note against that something has happened." Before 
the sentence is well finished, the horses have swept by, 
and a thousand watches are consulted, and presently 
the official record is prominently displayed, showing 
that the gallant chestnut and bay have sped their 
mile in 2 min. 19! sec. Mr. Work was right. Some- 
thing had happened. Edward had struck and slightly 
cut the heel of his near forefoot, which had caused 
him, usually as steady as a rock, to break his trot. 

Mr. Work's stables are very perfect and complete. 
Their kindly owner devotes a great deal of time, and 
takes a great deal of interest In this favourite Ameri- 



A Month in the United States 207 

can pastime, and it was, I fear, a bitter moment for 
him when he learned that Mr. W. K. Vanderbilt with 
Maud S. and AHne had beaten the best record of his 
crack team. It is not without interest to note how the 
best record keeps constantly being beaten. Fifteen 
years ago a mile in 2.40 for a single horse was con- 
sidered a tip-top performance. To-day Jay Eye See 
trotted a mile in 2.io|, and a horse called Johnstone,, 
the property of Mr. Case, paced a mile in even less 
time the other day at Chicago. 

My friend Mr. Godkin and Holmes dined with me 
at Delmonico's in Fifth Avenue, where we had an ex- 
cellent dinner and at a cost by no means extravagant, 
considering the reputation of the restaurant. 

Later we went to the Star Theatre to see the trag- 
edy of "Francesca da Rimini," written by quite a 
modern playwright. You know the story. I cannot 
say I greatly enjoyed the piece. It was too doleful, 
but unquestionably Barrett played the part of the de- 
formed Gianciotto with considerable power and dig- 
nity. 

New York, Thursday, Oct. ii, 1883. 
T SPENT the early day rambling about alone and 
J- pleasantly enough. I find the people quite civil, 
as civil if not as polite as the Parisian in the days of 
the Empire, and certainly much more civil than the 
general run of Englishmen. I do not want, by the 
way, to be taken for a Bonapartist, but have you not 



2o8 A Month in the United States 

noticed that, since the Empire suddenly crumpled up, 
the manners of the people of Paris have retrograded? 
It seems to me their civility to men and their defer- 
ence to women are not what they once were. Here 
I am struck with the marked deference paid to 
women. They give place to them in the streets, in 
the railways, and in the stage cars in a way quite nice 
to see. Women, too, of all classes and ages, go about 
in the public streets and in the public conveyances, 
too, alone in a way quite unknown to us. I suppose 
there are exceptions to the rule, but here they do not 
seem to suffer from the annoyance which one hears 
frequently spoken of in London and other cities. I 
dined with my friend Mr. Cadwalader at his luxuri- 
ous bachelor quarters in 35th St., where I met in addi- 
tion to my friends Mr. Frank Thomson and Mr. 
E. R. Robinson, of whom I have already spoken 
more than once, Mr. Carter and Mr. Parsons (two 
lawyers eminent in this city) and Mr. Justice Law- 
rence, a Judge of the Supreme Court. A most pleas- 
ant and enjoyable evening it was, and I regretted be- 
ing obliged to cut it short in order to attend the great 
Coleridge function fixed to take place to-night. 

I am struck with the candour with which men here 
discuss their institutions political, religious, and social, 
and admit generally with great frankness the blots in 
the existing condition of things. But I need hardly 
add they still claim to be the greatest and most power- 
ful nation this world has yet seen ; and they even point 



A Month in the United States 209 

exultlngly to their very weaknesses as proofs of their 
glory and their greatness; for what but a country of 
great resources (mental, moral, and material) could 
be great and glorious in spite of these drawbacks? 

The great function to which I have alluded Is the 
reception to-night of Lord Coleridge at the Academy 
of Music by the Bar Association of the State of New 
York. The first of these associations in the State in 
point of time as well as Influence and importance, is 
the Bar Association of the City of New York. This 
association will do honour to Lord Coleridge at a 
later date, and a number of its members took part In 
to-night's affair; but on the whole, for reasons to 
which reference here need not be made, they have 
not acted cordially with the State Association, which 
has been actively represented by Mr. Elliott F. Shep- 
ard, the attentive host of Lord Coleridge up to this 
time. 

The history of the City Association is In the high- 
est degree creditable to the members of the legal pro- 
fession in New York. It sprang into existence dur- 
ing what is still called the Infamous Tweed regime, 
when corruption stalked all-powerful, and when 
what was called justice was by some of Its adminis- 
trators an article sold to the highest bidder. It was 
then that the best men at the Bar banded themselves 
together and finally succeeded in hurling v/ith infamy 
from the Bench two of the men who had most dis- 
graced it — I mean Judge Barnard and Judge Car- 



2IO A Month in the United States 

dozo. I have no doubt that many of my friends at 
the English Bar have had before them (as I have 
had) some of the remarkable decisions of Judge 
Barnard in relation to the Erie Railway Company. ' 

The Academy of Music, which is, in fact, the 
Opera House, was very well filled throughout. To- 
wards the front of the stage was erected a platform, 
on which was seated Chief Justice Ruger of the State 
of New York, and other distinguished members of 
the reception committee, with, of course, the guest of 
the evening. This platform was the only thing that 
detracted from the striking character of the scene, 
but it really fitted in very badly, not to say ludi- 
crously, with the surroundings. It was narrow, with- 
out railings, and rose boldly and abruptly from the 
stage; and upon it were huddled together, on chairs 
perilously close to the precipitous edges of the plat- 
form, a number of gentlemen, generally speaking, old 
and bald-headed, and also (I need not add) eminent 
and respectable. This platform was a mistake. One 
trembled for the fate of many if only one were in- 
discreet. 

The proceedings began by a speech pitched in a 
high key of righteousness, delivered by Mr. Elliott F. 
Shepard, wherein he introduced the Chief Justice of 
England to the Chief Justice Ruger. Next followed 
a speech by Chief Justice Ruger, a speech of honest 
welcome to their distinguished guest. I confess to 
liking Chief Justice Ruger's speech, for it was direct 



A MofHh in the United States 211 

to its purpose, and, if commonplace in manner and 
matter, was real and unaffected. 

My good friend Mr. Evarts followed. He seems 
to me to be indispensable in these matters and com- 
monly fills the role of "great orator of the day." Of 
Mr. Evarts' speech it is enough to say that he prob- 
ably could not make a bad speech if he tried; and so 
on the present occasion there were clever touches of 
humour and deft involutions of phraseology which 
tickled the ear if they did not yield much food to the 
mental palate. He was supposed to represent the pro- 
fessional element in the welcome. There was per- 
haps in this relation more humour than judgment 
shown in his emphasising the fact that, while lawyers 
were accused of fleecing their clients, they never 
flayed them, and that a judicious amount of fleecing 
was supposed to add to the quantity and improve the 
quality of the wool. 

Then followed Lord Coleridge, who was warmly 
received. His commanding figure and perfectly mod- 
ulated voice soon arrested and kept the attention of 
his audience. I am not going to say that this was in 
any sense a great speech or that it contained a com- 
pendium of political or any other wisdom. In point 
of manner of delivery and as to tone and language, it 
was Lord Coleridge at his best, and that is saying a 
great deal; but it was after all a speech of an occasion 
(as the French say) into which it would have been 
extremely difficult, even if it had been wise, to say any- 



212 A Month in the United States 

thing at once profound and acceptable about Ameri- 
can institutions and conditions of things. His speech 
for the time and place and occasion was admirable. 
It was not unqualified praise, and it was not carping 
censure. He praised with discrimination, and he cen- 
sured in a way to impart to his praise a flavour of ju- 
dicial impartiality. As was once said of Townsend 
and the House of Commons, "he fairly hit his audi- 
ence 'twixt wind and water." So far as one can 
judge, his speech has been uncommonly well received 
throughout the country. The statement which per- 
haps for readers at home has the most interest is that 
in which he said that, though he admired Mr. Glad- 
stone much and was a steady supporter of his govern- 
ment, yet that John Bright was the man with whose 
political sentiments he (Lord Coleridge) most fre- 
quently found himself in accord. If this were de- 
signed as a rhetorical artifice to catch his audience, it 
was very clever and very successful. Richard Cob- 
den was a great English name, almost the only great 
English name, with the American people, but 
amongst living men John Bright's is the only one to 
conjure with on the American continent. It is to be 
noted, however, that this profession of radical faith 
comes at the time when John Bright's radicalism has 
passed its apogee, and his views are in some respects 
at least supposed to be narrow and reactionary. I 
thought, as I walked home after this brilliant gather- 
ing, "I suppose Lord Coleridge does not forget that 




JOHN MITCHEL 



A Month in the United States 213 

amongst one of John Bright's most famous public ut- 
terances not yet recalled, was one in which he main- 
tained that an hereditary legislative chamber could 
not be permanently maintained in a free State." 



Friday, Oct. 12, 1883. 
T VISITED Castle Garden to-day, a spot full of inter- 
-■- est to all who follow the fortunes of the emi- 
grant, for It is here that he first sets foot on Ameri- 
can soil, and he Is enrolled with careful particulars 
amongst the inhabitants of the country. I reserve, 
however, a full description of the place until I shall 
have paid another and longer visit. I was anxious to 
see the widow of poor John Mitchel, of "The United 
Irishmen" and the "Jail Journal." My interest In 
Mrs. Mitchel dates a long way back. She Is the 
daughter of a Captain Verner (one of the family of 
Co. Armagh Verners). He was a tenant of my 
father in Ballybot, Newry, and it was while living 
here (next door indeed to our old family house, where 
all of us children were born) that she eloped with 
John Mitchel, then, I think, practising as a Solicitor, 
and one of the firm of Frazer and Mitchel. Poor 
Mrs. Mitchel ! To look at, she was always weak and 
fragile, and yet she has shown more than once in her 
life that she has great nerve and resolution. It must 
have been very soon after her marriage that John 
Mitchel became prominent in Dublin as a politician 



214 A Month in the United States 

and a journalist. Many have been found to condemn 
what they considered the wickedness or impoHcy of 
his political course, but no one has questioned his sin- 
gle-mindedness and honesty of purpose. The only 
time I ever recollect seeing him was when the railway 
from Dublin reached no farther north than Drog- 
heda. We were both going to Dublin, and both got 
on the coach together on the Ballybot side of the town 
close to Turner's Glen. He was a man not easily for- 
gotten, and his conversation and appearance made a 
deep impression upon the little lad, his fellow-trav- 
eller, that day. I well recollect his dark straight 
hair, almost whiskerless face, and sallow, colourless, 
bloodless complexion, which, combined with a cer- 
tain sharpness of feature and nobility of brow, gave 
him a peculiarly intellectual appearance, with a look 
almost of the ascetic. The square character of his 
jaw and the firmness of his mouth conveyed the 
notion of a resolute, not to say obstinate, man; a 
notion which was not removed by the look of his 
dark grey eyes, which seemed full of dreams and 
melancholy. 

I still think' him the most brilliant journalistic 
writer I have ever known. He had not perhaps the 
breadth of Frederick Lucas, nor the wide information 
of Gavan Duffy, nor the tender pathetic imagination 
of Thomas Davis; but his style was more terse, vig- 
orous, and to the point than theirs and was wholly 
free from affectation of scholarship foreign to the 



A Month in the United States 215 

matter in hand. Occasionally In a sentence he could 
condense a world of argument. One instance occurs 
to me. In one of a series of letters addressed to the 
Orangemen of the North, he is pointing out to them 
why they should be in the van of the National move- 
ment, as their fathers had been In 1782 and 1798; 
and he is meeting an objection supposed to be made 
by an Orangeman then, and certainly frequently 
made for him since, namely: that to join with the 
Irish papist would be to join the children of Anti- 
christ, and so on. Each July 12th celebration makes 
one familiar with this kind of thing. John Mitchel 
did not proceed gravely to argue that, after all, the 
evidence was not quite conclusive that the Pope was 
really Antichrist, and that, after all, all Irishmen, 
even Irish papists, were bound up with the weal or 
woe of their country. He did none of these things. 
In the language of the now defunct special pleader he 
put in a plea of confession and avoidance. He wrote 
a single line. "The Pope may be Antichrist, but, 
Orangemen of the North, he serves no ejectments in 
Ulster." 

His second son, James MitcheP (his only surviv- 
ing son), a little resembles his father in the placid 
expression of his face, in his voice, and in his absence 
of colour. He has not the strong masterful expres- 

^He died in 1908, and in the Catholic Faith, which at least two 
of his sisters had adopted — without any opposition from their 
father, who once told John O'Hagan that, if he could pray, he 
would become a Catholic. 



2i6 A Month in the United States 

sion of his father. That he Is as advanced a poHti- 
cian on Irish affairs as his father a chance expression 
revealed. I said, "You, I think, take no part in poli- 
tics." "No, since the war I have had nothing to do 
in any way with politics." Later on in our conversa- 
tion the name of John Dillon came up. "Yes," said 
he, "he is thoroughly honest, but he is too moderate a 
politician for my taste." "Well, this is the first time 
I have heard John Dillon called a moderate politi- 
cian," I answered, laughing heartily; and so ended 
our conversation. 

I found Mrs. Mitchel looking stronger and stouter 
than I had ever before seen her. Trouble had indeed 
silvered her head, but, considering the sorrows which 
have been crowded into her life, she seemed in good 
spirits. To look at her you would hardly imagine 
that, friendless, she ran the blockade to join her hus- 
band and sons in the South. 

You will recollect that in the War of Secession here 
John Mitchel took part with the South, not, I am per- 
suaded, because of his love of the institution of slav- 
ery, but because he believed in the right of the South- 
ern States to govern themselves. I speak here of what 
I may call the natural right of the South. There is 
probably little doubt that as to the matter of legal 
right the weight of legal authority was with the 
South. 

As in whatever he attempted, John Mitchel was 
never half hearted in his support; so he risked every- 



A Month in the United States 217 

thing, person, position, means, and (more precious 
than all these) his three sons for the cause he 
espoused. 

It Is a very sad story. The eldest son displayed 
considerable mllitar}' genius, and was In command of 
Fort Sumter when a chance cannon-ball ended a life 
full of great promise. The third died on the field of 
battle; and the second son, James, of whom I have 
spoken, more than once wounded in actual con- 
flict, alone survives, carrying with him as he will 
to the end the maiming and disfiguring marks of 
war. 

With Mrs. Mitchel in all her troubles this consol- 
ing thought may abide, that, however men may differ 
as to John Mitchel's conduct, measured by the cold 
standard of prudence, all men recognise in him the 
rare stuff of sterling, unselfish devotion to the cause 
he advocated. 

I dined in the evening with Mr. E. L. Godkin at 
25th St., a very pleasant gathering. 



Saturday, Oct. 13, 1883. 
\ /Ty friend Mr. E. R. Robinson drove me to-day 
^*-^ to Jerome Park to see some American flat rac- 
ing. We went along the Hudson side of the Park at 
first by what is called the Riverside Road, and after- 
wards by the road known as the Grand Boulevard. 
The glimpses of the Hudson River and of the Pali- 



2 1 8 A Month in the United States 

sades on the opposite side of the river were very 
beautiful. 

These two very fine roads are due to the Tweed 
regime period. They are very fine wide roads, 
worthy of what I feel certain will be the future of this 
suburb. New York is probably not the only city in 
the world which owes its adornment to a profligate 
administration. The fact is a great deal of work 
done in Tweed's time was conceived in a worthy 
spirit, but the municipality was made to pay three or 
four prices for it. It is, I believe, computed that 
Tweed brought the municipality into debt to the 
amount of fifty million dollars, for which value was 
received to the extent of about fifteen millions. At 
present the tide of fashion following the line of Fifth 
Avenue is distinctly setting towards the other and 
lower side of the Park. I shall be disappointed i£ 
this continues. When next I visit New York (and I 
hope I shall be able to do that before ten years are 
over) I expect to find this riverside district with 
proper road approaches and other means of access; 
and I shall be disappointed if the millionaires are not 
there, disputing for sites in this picturesque neigh- 
bourhood. The fact is Fifth Avenue is too narrow 
for a great fashionable centre, and in a few years it 
will probably be found to contain (at least to a great 
extent) business houses. 

Jerome Park is named after the gentleman who 
owns the soil, and who is, I believe, the father-in-law 



A Month in the United States 219 

of Lord Randolph Churchill. It is leased and man- 
aged by a club very much on the principle of the San- 
down Park near London; but the racing track, as It 
is called, is not nearly so good as that of the latter. 
It is a pretty enough place, and an evening can be 
very pleasantly passed there; but it is not racing one 
sees. 

The track is too confined, the curves are too sharp, 
and the straight run is too short (only about two fur- 
longs) to allow a really good horse to get fully into 
his stride. They have a very sensible plan here. The 
bookmakers, or professional betting-men, they confine 
to a particular spot away from the main stands; and 
they make them pay a very considerable sum for lib- 
erty to bet. This serves two useful purposes. It en- 
ables the authorities to exercise surveillance as to the 
character and stability of the professional betting- 
men, and also is a sensible mode of compelling that 
class, who alone In the long run make money by race- 
betting, to contribute to the endowment of racing. It 
Is notorious In England that thousands of acres and 
many thousands of pounds, nay, many great fortunes, 
are being swallowed up by the bookmakers in every 
decade of years, and yet these gentry pay on the same 
principle as the general public, at whose cost they 
wear purple and fine linen and feast sumptuously 
every day. 

In the evening I assisted at a grand dinner given by 
my friend Mr. Evarts. Sir James Hannen, Sir Ar- 



220 A Month in the United States 

thur Hobhouse, and myself were the only foreigners. 
The company was principally made up of lawyers and 
judges with a few civilians thrown in. 

It was a bright, cheery, and In every way pleasant 
party, and It was late before we left the steps of our 
entertaining host. 



G 



APPENDIX 

BY THOMAS F. MEEHAN, A.M. 

REATLY as he marveled at all he saw in the 
Northwest during his trip in 1883, one can 
not help thinking how much greater would be his 
amazement could Lord Russell return and make the 
same trip to-day. The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Ex- 
position of the summer of 1909, at Seattle, drew the 
attention of the people of the United States specially 
to the wonders and progress of the Pacific Coast. 

At the inaugural ceremonies of the Seattle Exposi- 
tion James J. Hill, the great railroad magnate of the 
Northwest, forcefully insisted on the fact that the 
growth resulting from the building of new railways 
is similar to that produced by the introduction of 
irrigation. A survey of conditions presented to-day 
at the points mentioned in Lord Russell's diary, and 
those he found there during his journey in 1883, will 
aptly serve as a confirmation of this statement. 

Admitted to the Federal Union on November 11, 
1889, the great agricultural State of Washington has 
developed out of the then fallow Territory, and 
keeping pace with its marvelous industrial and com- 
mercial expansion we find Oregon and Idaho. Spo- 
kane, a city of more than 60,000 inhabitants, where 
eight railroads enter, in 1880 was but an Indian trad- 
ing post round which less than 400 people clustered. 



22 2 Appendix 

The completion of the Northern Pacific gave it new 
hfe and started it on the road to its present prosper- 
ity. Tacoma, then almost unknown, is a great man- 
ufacturing and industrial city of 110,000 inhabitants. 

Seattle is a metropolis built in a generation. In 
1880 it included within its limited area 3,533 peo- 
ple; in 1890, 42,837; in 1900, 80,000; and to-day 
probably it has 250,000. Four transcontinental rail- 
roads make it a huge forwarder of freights and the 
centre of an enormous trade to Japan and the East. 
Its harbor, Elliott Bay, has become a leading ocean 
port, where the whole American fleet could anchor. 

In 1904 on its banks the battleship Nebraska was 
launched. Built originally on a hill, modern engineer- 
ing is accomplishing one of its most astounding feats 
In changing the grade of the city's twenty-one miles 
of streets. To level the hill and make convenient 
ways for traffic, fourteen million cubic yards of earth 
have to be moved, with a maximum cut of one hun- 
dred and twenty feet, and a minimum fill of fifty- 
four feet, a process which, it is claimed, involves the 
carriage of more ground than any other modern un- 
dertaking except the Panama Canal. The tide flats 
of thirty years ago have been filled in and are now the 
heart of the business district, covered with railroad 
terminals, factories, and warehouses. Intellectual 
life has also quickened and expanded along all the 
lines of progressive citizenship. 

Magnificent as has all this material development 
proved, It In no sense exceeds what has been accom- 



Appendix 223 

plished by the Church throughout the same territory, 
during the period that has elapsed since 1883. The 
figures presented by the Catholic statistics to-day, in 
comparison with those of 1883, are as notable as 
any of those in the commercial or industrial expan- 
sion. When Lord Russell visited this section Wash- 
ington Territory comprised the Diocese of Nes- 
qually, established May 31, 1850, as a suffragan of 
the Province of Oregon, which included besides Ore- 
gon, Idaho, Vancouver Island, and Alaska. The 
Metropolitan was the martyr Archbishop Charles J. 
Seghers, who was assassinated by a degenerate half- 
breed on November 28, 1886. Bishop iEgidius Jun- 
ger, who died December 26, 1889, presided over 
Nesqually, and had his Cathedral at Vancouver. Un- 
der his jurisdiction were about 25 priests, who at- 
tended 30 churches and 64 stations. Seattle, Ta- 
coma, and Spokane had one church each. Schools 
and institutions under Catholic management were al- 
most unknown outside Vancouver. 

The name of the diocese and its see were changed 
to Seattle September 11, 1907, and it now has 131 
priests, of whom 52 are members of regular orders 
and congregations; 169 churches, 157 stations, 67 
chapels; 6 colleges and academies for boys, 18 acad- 
emies for girls; 13 hospitals; 5 orphan asylums, 
5 homes for the poor, and a Catholic population of 
85,000. 

In addition there have been created the new dio- 
ceses of Baker City, 1903; Boise, 1893; Great Falls, 



2 24 Appendix 

Montana, 1904; Helena, Montana, 1884, and the 
Prefecture Apostolic of Alaska, 1894. Within their 
jurisdiction are 100,000 Catholics, 135 priests, and 
180 churches. 

Idaho in 1883 had 10 priests and churches, and 
about 3,000 Catholics, of whom more than half were 
Indians. It was a vicariate and the priests Jesuit 
missionaries. Dakota was also a vicariate with 36 
priests and about 50 churches. It now has four 
dioceses, Fargo, 1889; Lead, 1892; Sioux Falls, 
1896, and Bismarck, 19 10. Here there are 133,000 
Catholics, 222 priests, and 202 churches. 



UNITED STATES CATHOLIC HISTORICAL 
SOCIETY 

Honorary President 
Most Rev. John M. Farley, D.D. 

President 
Charles Geo. Herbermann, Ph.D.,LL.D.,Lit.D. 

Vice-President 
Stephen Farrelly 

Treasurer 
Richard S. Treacy, A.B. 

Recording Secretary 
John E. Cahalan, A.M. 

Corresponding Secretary 
Joseph H. Fargis, LL.B. 

Librarian 
Rev. M. J. Considine 

Trustees \ . 

Rt. Rev. Mgr. Joseph F. Mooney, V.G. 

Rt. Rev. Mgr. James H. McGean, LL.D. 

Henry Heide 

Peter Condon, A.M. 

Thomas S. O'Brien, LL.D. 

Thomas F. Woodlock, LL.D. 

Thomas F. Meehan, A.M. 

225 



226 Officers 

Councillors 

Hon. Edward B. Amend, LL.D. 

William R. King 

Rev. Thomas J. Campbell, S.J. 

Edward J. McGuire, LL.B. 

Andrew J. Shipman, LL.B. 

Rev. Joseph F. Delany, D.D. 

Editing Committee 

Charles George Herbermann, LL.D., 

LiT.D., Ph.D. 

Rev. Michael J. Considine 

Rev. Joseph F. Delany, D.D. 

Thomas F. Meehan, A.M. 



MEMBERS 



Adams, Samuel 
Adams, T. Albeus 
Adikes, John 
Agar, John G. 
Ahearn, Jeremiah 
Almirall, Raymond F. 
Amberg, William A. 
Amend, Hon. Edw. B. 
Amend, William J. 
Amy, Alfred V. 
AspELL, Dr. John 
Bainton, Dr. Joseph H. 
Bartley, Rev. James 

R. 
Baumer, Francis 
Bennett, William H. 
Benziger, Bruno 
Benziger, Louis G. 
Benziger, Nicholas C. 
Berge, Edward W. 

BlERSMITH, E. L. 

Binsse, Henry B. 
Bister, John 
Blake, Rev. W. L. 
Blandford, p. a. 
Blenk, Most Rev. 

James H., D.D. 
BoGAN, Rev. B. M. 
BoNAcuM, Rt. Rev. 

Thomas, D.D. 

BORNEMANN, ReV. GeO. 

BoYLAN, Rev. John F. 
Brady, Rev. John F. 
Brann, Very Rev. 
Mgr. Henry A., D.D. 



Brennan, Alfred T.V. 

Brennan, John 

Breslin, Rev. P. N. 

Briody, Rev. John H. 

Bristed, C. a. 

Britt, Hon. Philip J. 

Broderick, Daniel I. 

Brophy, W. H. 

Brown, W. J. 

Brune, Very Rev. F. J. 

Burke, Edmond 

Burke, Rev. John J., 
C.S.P. 

Burke, Rt. Rev. Thos. 
M. A., D.D. 

Burtsell, John M. 

Burtsell, Very Rev. 
Mgr. R. L., D.D. 

Butler, James 

Byrne, Rev. Christo- 
pher E. 

Byrne, Miss Eliza- 
beth M. 

Byrne, James 

Byrne, Rt. Rev. W., 
D.D. 

Caffrey, J. J. 

Cahalan, John E. 

Callahan, Cornelius 

Callan, Rev. M. S. 

Callanan, L. J. 

Campbell, Rev. Jos. C. 

Campbell, Rev. Thos. 
J., S.J. 

Carey, Rev. P. P. 



227 



228 



Members 



Carroll, John C. 
Carroll, John F. 
Carroll, P. P. 
Casey, A. J. 
Chase, Miss Maud E. 
Chazal, Louis R. 
Chidvvick, Very Rev. 

John P. 
Chute, Mrs. S. H. 
Clare, Miss Mary E. 
Clare, William F. 
Clark, Rev. Arthur 

March 
Clark, William B. 
Claude, Rev. Capis- 

TRAN, O.M.Cap 
COCKRAN, Wm. BoURKE 

CoHALAN, Daniel F. 

Coleman, Chas. W. 

Coleman, Rev. Thos. J. 

Collins, Very Rev. 
Mgr. Chas. W. 

CoLTON, Rt. Rev. Chas. 
H., D.D. 

CoNATY, Rt. Rev. Thos. 
J., D.D. 

Condon, Martin 

Condon, Peter 

Connolly, Rev. Ar- 
thur T. 

Connolly, Very Rev. 
Mgr. James N. 

Conroy, Charles C. 

Considine, Rev. M. J. 

Cooke, A. S. 

CoRLEY, Rev. Charles 
R. 

Cotter, Rev. James H. 



CoYLE, John J. 

CoYTE, James Slater 

Crimmins, Hon. John 
D. 

Cronin, Rev. Daniel 
T. 

Crossey, Rev. John J. 

Crowne, J. Vincent 

CuLLEN, Thos. F. 

CuLLUM, Rev. Hugh P. 

CuNNiON, Rev. D. C. 

CuNNiON, Frank 

CuNNioN, Rev. Ma- 
lick A. 

CURLEY, T. F. 
Curry, Edward J. 
CusACK, Rt. Rev. Thos. 

F., D.D. 
Daly, Daniel 
Daly, Hon. Joseph F. 
Davey, H. J. 
Deery, John J. 
DeGot, Mrs. Camille 
Deitsch, Miss 
Delaney, John J. 
Delany, Rev. Dr. Tos. 

F. 
Delehanty, F. B. 
DeRoo, Rev. P. 
Devine, Thomas J. 
Devoy, John W. 
DiETz, Nicholas 
Dillon, Rev. Francis J. 
Dillon, Joseph 
Dineen, Rev. Jos. P. 
Dixon, Robert N. 
DoELGER, Peter 
DoLLARD, James J. 



Members 



229 



Donahue, Rt. Rev. 

P. J, D.D. 
Donnelly, Rt. Rev. 

Mgr. E. J., V.F. 

DONOGHUE, F. X. 

DoNOHUE, Daniel 

DoNOHUE, Rev. Jos. P. 

DooDY, Rev. Daniel 

Dooley, M. F. 

Dougherty, James E. 

Dowling, Austin 

DowLiNG, Hon. Vic- 
tor J. 

Doyle, Alfred 

Doyle, John F. 

Doyle, John F., Jr. 

Driscoll, Rev. John T. 

Drummond, Louis E.A. 

Drummond,MichaelJ. 

DucEY, Michael H. 

Duffy, Rev. Francis P. 

Duffy, James P. B. 

Duffy, Rev. Thos. F. 

DuTTON, Joseph 

DwYER, Dr. John 

Early, Rev. Terence J. 

Edwards, Rt. Rev. 
Mgr. John 

Egan, Peter 

Emmet, Dr. Thomas 
Addis 

Falahee, John J. 

Fanning, William J. 

Fargis, Joseph H. 

Farley, Most Rev. 
John M., D.D. 

Farley, Terence 

Farrell, Edward D. 



Farrell, Rev. Her- 
bert F. 

Farrelly, Stephen 

Farrelly, T. C. 

Feehan, Rt. Rev. D. 
F., D.D. 

Feitner, Thomas L. 

Fenlon, John T. 

Ferrer, Dr. Jose M. 

Ferris, James J. 

FiNLAY, Sidney J. 

Fitzgerald, Hon. Jas. 
F. 

Fitzgerald, Rev. Thos. 
P. 

FitzMaurice,Rt. Rev. 
John E., D.D. 

Fitzpatrick, Rev. Ma- 
lick J. 

Flannelly, Rev. Jos. F. 

Flood, Rev. Mgr. 
James J. 

Floyd-Jones, G. Stan- 
ton 

Fogarty, Thomas 

Fornes, Charles V. 

Fox, John 

Fox, Patrick J. 

FoY, Rev. Francis A. 

Franciscan Fathers 

Franklin, Joseph 

Frawley, Hon. Jas. J. 

Frawley, Rev. John J. 

Friel, John J. 

Fuller, Paul 

Gabriels, Rt. Rev. 
Henry, D.D. 

Gannon, Frank S. 



230 



Metnbers 



Garvan, Patrick 
Gassler, Rev. Leo 
Gibbon, John T. 
Gibbons, His Eminence 

James Cardinal 
GiLLERAN, Thomas 
Gleason, Rev. J. M. 
Goessmann, Miss 

Helen 
GoGGiN, Rev. Jas. E. 
Goodwin, Frank J. 
Gorman, Denis J. 

GOTTSBERGER, FrANCIS 

Grady, Hon. Thos. F. 
Grady, Walter L. 
GuERTiN, Rt. Rev.G.A. 
GuiNEVAN, Rev. Peter 

F. 
Gummersbach, Joseph 
Haggerty, J, Henry 
Halloran, John H. 
Hamilton, Wm. Peter 
Hannan, John 
Hannon, Lindley a. 
Hanrahan, Rev.Jas.V. 
Harper, John J. 
Harrington, Rev. W. 

H. 
Harris, Charles N. 
Hartford, Geo. H. 
Hayes, Cady 
Hayes, Rt. Rev. Mgr. 

P. J., V.G. 
Healy, Rev. Gabriel 

A. 
Hearn, Rev. David W., 

S.J. 
Heide, Henry 



Heide, William F. 

Hellman, Henry 

Hendrick, Hon. Peter 
A. 

Hennessy, D. J. 

Herbermann, Alex- 
ander J. 

Herbermann, Prof. 
Chas. G. 

Herbermann, Henry 

Herin, William O. 

HicKEY, Rev. David J. 

HicKEY, John J. 

HicKEY, Rev. John J. 

HiCKEY, Rev. W. D. 

HiGGiNS, Francis 

HiMMEL, Rev. Joseph, 

S.J. 
HoEY, Rev. J. L. 
Hoffmann, Thos. A. 

HOLTZMAN, L. F. 

HoLwicK, Rev. F. G. 
Hopkins, John A. 
Howard, Rev. Jas. J. 
Hughes, Rev. J. T. 
Hughes, Rev. W. F., 

D.D. 
hussey, j. b. 
Hurley, Rt. Rev. Mgr. 

Edw. F. 
Jordan, John 
Joyce, Michael J. 
Kean, Rev. John J. 
Keane^ James R. 
Keane, Most Rev. 

John J., D.D. 
Kearney, Rt. Rev. 

Mgr. John F. 



Members 



231 



Kellner, Rev. J. A. 
Kelly, Dr. Charles J. 
Kelly, Mrs. Hugh 
Kelly, Rev. Joseph S. 
Kelly, Thomas H. 
Kennedy, Thos. F. 
Kennelly, Bryan L. 
Kent, John S. 
Keresey, John T. 

KlELTY, M. J. 

KiERAN, Joseph N. 
KiERNAN, Patrick 
King, Percy J. 
King, William R. 
Klauder, Rev. Francis 

E., C.SS.R. 
Lafort, Rev. Remy 
Lamarche, Henry J. 
Lammel, Very Rev. 

Mgr. Anthony 
Lane, Rev. John I. 
Lavelle, Rt. Rev. Mgr. 

M.J. 
Lawler, Joseph A. 
Leahy, John J. 
Leary, Thomas J. 
Lenane, Thomas 
Lennon, Rev. Jas. D. 
Leonard, Rev. Edw. F. 
Lewis, James M. 
Librarian, Boston 

Public Library 
Linehan, Paul H. 
Lings, Very Rev. A. A. 
Livingston, Rev. Wm. 
LoNARGAN, Rev. John 

P. 
LouBAT, Joseph F. 



Ludden, Rt. Rev. P. A., 

D.D. 
Lummis, William 
Lynch, James 
Lynch, James D. 
Lynch, James F. 
Lynch, Dr. J. B. 
Lynch, Rt. Rev. Mgr. 

J. S. M., D.D. 
Lyons, Jere C. 
McAleer, Rev. P. P. 
McAnerney, John P. 
McBride, T. J. 
McCaffrey, John B., 

M.D. 
McCall, Hon. Edw. 

E. 
McCarten, Mrs. Eliz- 
abeth C. 
McCarten, Michael 

K. 
McClure, David 
McClure, Rev. Wm. J. 
McCoRMACK, Frank J. 
McCoRMiCK, James W. 
McCready, Rt. Rev. 

Mgr. Chas. J. 
McCue, Rev. E. J. 
McCusker, p. J. 
McDonnell, Rt. Rev. 

Chas. E., D.D. 
McElderry, Vincent 

J. 

McElroy, Mrs. Wm. 

B. 
McFaul, Rt. Rev. Jas. 

A., D.D. 
McFee, John J., M.D. 



232 



Members 



McGare, Rev. Thos.F. 
McGean, Edward J. 
McGean, Rt. Rev. 

Mgr. James H. 
McGoLRicK, Very Rev. 

Mgr. Edw. J. 
McGovERN, James 
McGuire, Edward J. 
McGuiRE, Jos. Hubert 
McHuGH, Rev.JohnB. 
McKenna, Rt. Rev. 

Mgr. Edward 
McKenna, Thomas P. 
McLouGHLiN, Miss 

Mary J. 
McLouGHLiN, Wm. 
McMahon, Rt. Rev. 

Mgr. D. J. 
McMahon, James 
McMahon, John B., 

M.D. 
McMahon, Rev. Dr. 

Joseph H. 
McNaboe, James M. 
McNamara, Rt. Rev. 

Mgr. p. J. 
McNamee, John 
McParlan, Edw. C. 
McParland, John E. 
McPartland, Stephen 

J- 

Madden, Rt. Rev. Mgr. 

John T. 
Maguire, James D. 
Maguire, Rev. Wm. J. 
Maher, Rev. J. J., cm. 
Maloney, Martin 
Maloney, Maurice T. 



Manhattan College 

Martin, James J. 

Mayo, Hon. John B. 

Meany, Edward, M.D. 

Meehan, Thomas F. 

Meenan, Rev. Wm. B. 

Meister, Rev. Isidore 

Messmer, Most Rev. 
S. G., D.D. 

Meyer, Rev. Henry J. 

Miller, Rev. Wm. C. 

Mitchell, John J. 

MoFFiT, William H. 

Monks, John, Jr. 

MooNEY, Rt. Rev. 
Mgr. Joseph F. 

Morrell, Mrs. Edw. 

Morris, Rt. Rev. John 
B. 

Morris, Rev. John J. 

MosHER, Thomas 

Mother Superior, 
Academy Mt. St. Vin- 
cent 

Mother Superior, 
Sisters of Charity 

MoYNAHAN, Barthol- 
omew 

Moynahan, Thomas B. 

MuLGREW, James T. 

MuLLALY, John 

MuLLANY, Bernard J. 

MuLLANY, Rev. J. F. 

Mltllen, Rev. J. J. 

MuLQUEEN, Hon. Jos. 
F. 

Mulqueen, Michael J. 

MuLRY, Thomas M. 



Members 



233 



Murphy, Edward 
Murphy, James J. 
Murphy, Miss Nora 
Murphy, Very Rev. 

Mgr. W. G. 
Murphy, Rev. Thomas 

E., S.J. 
Murphy, Rev. W. H. 
Murray, Charles 
MuRRiN, James B. 
Myhan, Rev. Thos. F. 
Nageleisen, Rev. J. A. 
Neagle, Rev. Richard 
Neill, Charles P. 
Nolan, James 
Nolan, Rev. John A. 
NooNAN, Rev. James E. 
Noonan, John 
Norris, Rev. John W. 
Norris, Rev. Joseph I., 

D.D. 
O'Brien, Edward J. 
O'Brien, Very Rev. F. 

A., LL.D. 
O'Brien, Rt. Rev. Mgr. 

John 
O'Brien, Dr. John J. 
O'Brien, Miles M. 
O'Brien, Hon. Mor- 
gan J. 
O'Brien, Thomas S. 
O'Callaghan, Rt. Rev. 

T. A., D.D. 
O'Connell, Rt. Rev. 

D. J., D.D. 
O'Connell, John 
O'Connor, Harold H. 
O'Connor. P. 



O'Connor, Rt. Rev. 

John J., D.D. 
O'Connor, Thomas H. 
O'Connor, William P. 
O'DoNOGHUE, Mrs. Jos. 

J. 

O'DoNOHUE, Louis V. 
O'Flaherty, Wm. p. 
O'Gorman, Hon. James 

A. 
O'Gorman, Richard J. 
O'Gorman, Rt. Rev. 

Thomas, D.D. 
Ohligschloger, J. B. 
O'Keefe, Rev. John J. 
O'Keefe, Rev. T. M. 
O'Keeffe, John G. 
Olcott, Mrs. Dr. 
O'Leary, Miss Mary 
O'Leary, Rev. P. J. 
O'Marra, Rev. Pat'k 

A. 
O'Meara, Stephen 
O'Neil, Rev. Denis P. 
O'Rourke, Jeremiah 
Orr, William C. 
O'SuLLivAN, Charles 
o'sullivan, j. d. 
Owens, Joseph E. 
Pallen, Conde B. 
Penny, Very Rev. Wm. 

L. 
Perry, Charles J. 
Pettit, Rev. Geo., S.J. 
Phelan, Rev. Thos. P. 
Philbin, Eugene A. 
Prendergast, Jas. M. 
Prendergast, Wm. A. 



234 



Members 



Pres. of Trustees of 
St. Patrick's Cathe- 
dral. 

Prior of St. Benedict's 
Abbey 

PuLLEYN, John J. 

Pyne, Rev. William 

QuiNLAN, Francis J., 
M.D. 

Quinn, Rev. Daniel a. 

Quinn, Rev. Daniel J., 

sj. 

Rainer, Rt. Rev. Mgr. 

Joseph 
Ramsay, Clarence J. 
Redemptorist Fathers 
Redwood, Most Rev. 

Francis, D.D. 
Reid, Rev. Charles F. 
Reilly, F. James 
Reville, Philip E. 
RiCHTER, Rt. Rev. H. 

J., D.D. 
Ridder, Henry 
Ridder, Herman 
RiTz, August N. 
Robinson, George B. 
rodgers, j. c. 
Roe, J. A. 
Rooney, J. A. 
Routt, Harvey J. 
RuDGE, George, Jr. 
Russell, Rev. Wm. T. 
Ryan, Mrs. Joseph T. 
Ryan, Thomas F. 
Ryan, William T. 
Salter, Rev. J. B. 
Sasseen, R. a. 



ScHAEKEN, Rev. Al- 

PHONSUS M. H. 

ScHAEFER, Joseph 
Schaeffler, Frank 
Shea, Robert M. 
Schinner, Rt. Rev. A. 

F., D.D. 
Schirmer, Charles J. 
ScHOPP, Adam A. 
ScHREMBS, Rt. Rev. 

Mgr. Joseph 
Scott, Joseph 
Scully, Rev. Patrick 

F. 
Scully, P. J. 
Shahan, Very Rev. 

Thomas J. 
Sheahan, Rev. J. F. 
Sheedy, Bryan D., 

M.D. 
Sheppard, Rt. Rev. 

Mgr. John A. 
Sherer, J. P. 
Shipman, Andrew J. 
Shriver, C. C. 
Shriver, T. Herbert 
Silo, James P. 
Slater, John 
Sloane, Charles W. 
Sloane, Dr. Thomas 

O'Conor 
Smith, Bryan 
Smith, James 
Smith, Rev. James J. 
Smith, John T. 
Smith, Rev. Joseph F. 
Spalding, Rt. Rev. J. 

L., D.D. 



Members 



235 



Spillane, Rev. Edw. 

P., SJ. 
Sullivan, J. H. 
Superior, Convent St. 

Joseph (Brentwood) 
Sweeny, Rev. Edwin M. 
Taaffe, Very Rev. 

Mgr. Thomas 
Taaffe, Thomas Gaff- 

NEY 

Tack, Theodore E. 

Talley, Alfred J. 

Taylor,Rev. Matthew 
A. 

Ternan, Gerald B. 

Thebaud, Paul G. 

Theresa, Sister Vin- 
cent 

Thompson, T. P. 

Thornton, Rev. Thos. 
A. 

Thuille, Rev. Jos. M. 

Tierney, Rev. Edw. J. 

TiERNEY, Henry J. 

Tierney, Myles 

TiERNEY, Dr. Myles J. 

Toohill, Rev. John 
William 

Towle, p. J. 

Travers, Vincent P. 

Treacy, Richard S. 

Tully, James M. 

Van Antwerp, Rev. 
Francis J. 



Varnagiris, Vincent 

v., Ph.D. 
Verdaguer, Rt. Rev. 

Peter, Vic. Apost. 
Wade, Joseph H. 
Wall, Rt. Rev. Mgr. 

Francis H., D.D. 
Walsh, Rt. Rev. Louis 

S., D.D. 
Walsh, Richard L. 
Walshe, Rev. R. F. 
Walters, Charles F. 
Webber, Charles A. 
Weir, Rev. John F. 
Whalen, Grover M. 
White, W. F. 
White, Dr. Whitman 

V. 
Wienker, Very Rev. 

H. Clement 
WiLMER, Very Rev. 

Antoninus, O.M. 

Cap. 
WooDLOCK, Thos. F., 
Woods, Rev. Joseph, 

S.J. 
Wright, Francis E. 
Wucher, Rev. Theo- 

PHILE, S.M.P. 

Wynne, Rev. John J., 

S.J. 
Yawman, p. H. 
ZwiNGE, Rev. Joseph, 

S.J. 



C 310 88 



^\-''^ V-^-y %*-^^V V'-^-/ ■ 






^^' 













-^oV^ 



^9' 




■MB Rt^«V^ ^ ^ • 



/"-^, 



.♦^ o'jfe^ %/ »*^-^^° -^-^ »^^ 




0^ 






HECKMAN 

BINDERY INC. 



^^ AUG 88 

N. MANCHESTER, 
INDIANA 46962 




